


Fifty-Five

by Imogen_Penn



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Espionage, F/M, Memory Loss, badassery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-13
Updated: 2016-08-16
Packaged: 2018-05-13 19:10:35
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 11
Words: 36,377
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5713861
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Imogen_Penn/pseuds/Imogen_Penn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When wasteful war shall statues overturn,<br/>And broils root out the work of masonry,<br/>Nor Mars his sword nor war's quick fire shall burn<br/>The living record of your memory.</p><p>- From Shakespeare's Sonnet 55.</p><p>Darcy Lewis disappeared from Heathrow Airport more than three years ago. Despite SHIELD's best efforts, no trace of her was ever found. She is officially labelled missing and presumed dead.</p><p>So why is she in Belarus and directly in the path of Natasha Romanov? And why can't she remember how she got there?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Yesterday's Just a Memory

**Author's Note:**

> So, I was prompted AGES ago by Bulmavegotaku to write a Blindspot inspired fic. I will freely admit that I have never seen Blindspot, but the prompt launched a full fledged epic plot bunny, so here we are! 
> 
> Huge thanks for Bulmavegotaku for the prompt and for giving this chapter a once over! Also, super thanks to Nessismore for dealing with my wibbling about sorting out the plot for this monster and reminding me that character development is still a thing that needs to happen :)

Yesterday's just a memory, tomorrow is never what it's supposed to be.

 - Bob Dylan

 

She sat up with a start, immediately aware of the biting cold and not much more.

The street she was looking at through swirling snow was profoundly unfamiliar. She kept expecting the haze to clear and the memory of where she was and why she was here to rise in her mind.

After a few long moments, she realized that it wasn’t coming. Her breath started to come in short unmanageable gasps, never bringing enough oxygen to slow the spinning in her head.

She tried to take stock.

The heavy boots and thick socks she was wearing were unfamiliar. The laces were worn and the toes, which she cautiously tapped against each other – steel reinforced, were scuffed. They felt worn in and comfortable, but the weight of them was an unaccustomed pull on her ankles and she was sure she had never seen them before.

The long black pants fit well. The thick canvass-like material stretched ever so slightly across her thighs. She felt the gentle weight of something in the cargo pocket against her right hip.

The jacket she wore was dark green. Like the boots, the jacket felt heavily made and well worn. The thick down lining was protecting her well against the freezing weather and the fur lined hood was pulled up around her ears and over a black toque covering her braided hair.

She put a hand, covered in a thin leather glove, into the right pocket of her pants. She came up with a passport and a thick wad of Euros.

This review did nothing to calm her racing nerves.

She shoved the cash and passport back into her pocket and cast around herself frantically for any clues as to where she was.

She could see a large building across the street from her through the stinging snow, roman columns lining the front. Was she in London? She thought maybe she was in London.

She stood up, immediately stumbling to catch herself on the arm of the bench she had been sitting on. Her body felt…wrong; off, somehow. Had her legs been so thickly muscled before? Had they had this kind of power?

She took a few wary steps and then jogged across the street until she could see a sign at the front of the building.

Нацыянальны мастацкі музей Рэспублікі Беларусь

The Belarusian National Art Museum? How did she get to Belarus?

_When did she learn to read Belarusian?_

She was shaking, standing frozen in place. A woman in a long black coat with a brilliant red scarf wrapped around her neck and a fur cap pulled low over her ears stopped in front of her. The woman looked at her with a steady gaze that betrayed nothing.

“Darcy Lewis?” She spoke in English, only a hint of question in her tone.

“Yeah, I…who are you? What’s…” She could barely manage to get much out through a clenched throat and chattering teeth.

“My name is Natasha,” she said in a low voice, looking around as if afraid of being overheard, “I am a friend of Dr. Jane Foster.”

“Jane?” It felt like a rush of relief to hear something that her mind connected to. “We were in London…and then…is she okay?”

“Dr. Foster is fine,” the woman, Natasha, said in a reassuringly confident tone, “I can take you to see her, if you want to come with me?”

Something in her rebelled against going anywhere with a stranger. Her right hand twitched against her hip in a way that felt familiar yet utterly strange.

“Why should I trust you?” she said in a sharp tone that she hardly recognized.

Natasha raised one perfectly groomed eyebrow. “Dr. Foster’s favorite pop tarts are the cherry flavored ones,” she said, “but you can’t stand them.”

“They taste like cough syrup.” The words slipped out of Darcy and she found, once they came out, that they were true. She let out a little sob. “I want to go home.”

“I can do that,” said Natasha in that same unshakable voice “Let’s get you inside.”

In an alley across the street, a man dressed in black watched the two women walk away. Only when the figures had disappeared into the grey-white cloud of snow did he turn, his shoulders hunched and hands shoved in his pockets, and trudge away in the opposite direction.

+

+

Natasha sat her down in a small attic apartment on the top floor of an old brick building and placed a cup of steaming tea into her still gloved hands before she spoke again.

“Listen,” she said, looking at Darcy with reassuringly clear and calm eyes, “I will tell you everything that I know, and I’ll do it before I call in so they can’t tell me not to.” This hint of insubordination made Darcy feel better about the woman in front of her than anything else had so far. “But first I need to know what you remember.”

Darcy nodded and thought carefully. “You’re SHIELD, aren’t you?” she asked.

Natasha tilted her head to the side curiously, but nodded.

“I remember being in London,” Darcy said, “After we destroyed, like, an entire city block. SHIELD was there for the cleanup and de-brief. Jane left with Thor eventually. SHIELD offered me a job in New York, and I remember going to the airport. I think…I think there was something wrong with my Visa, and then…then…” She could feel the panic creeping back over her even though she didn’t know why.

“Okay,” said Natasha, “that’s okay. That’s as much as we know too. When you didn’t get on your flight, we started looking, but SHIELD couldn’t track you past that point. What do you remember before I found you today?”

“Nothing,” said Darcy, gripping the sleeves of her jacket, “I woke up on a bench just across the street from the Нацыянальны мастацкі музей Рэспублікі Беларусь. I walked across the street and then ran into you.”

“Pretty convenient,” said Natasha with a considering look “When did you learn Belarusian?”

“I have no idea,” said Darcy with a helpless sort of shrug. “This whole situation doesn’t exactly smell like a coincidence, does it?” She turned out her pocket, showing Natasha the passport and cash.

“No,” said Natasha slowly, “it does not.”

“How long has it been?” Darcy finally asked, “How long since London?”

Natasha looked at her evenly. “Three years.”

+

+

 

“Captain?” Maria Hill’s voice came over the intercom in the gym where Steve was testing some new prototype magnets for his shield.

“What can I do for you?” he asked, setting his shield on a rack and unclasping the magnets from his wrists.

“We’ve got a call from Romanov. I think you should take it,” she said.

Steve immediately straightened. “She had another three days under cover, what happened?”

“Mission was scrubbed,” said Maria shortly, “for good reason.”

“What good reason?”

“It’ll be easier to let her explain. Just get down here.”

Steve made it to communications in less than three minutes, striding towards Agent Hill to stand in front of the view screen where Natasha’s slightly fuzzy image was broadcasting.

“Nat,” said Steve tersely, “report.”

Without a word, Natasha shifted her laptop and Steve was looking at a pale and drawn face that he immediately recognized as Dr. Foster’s assistant, missing and presumed dead.

“Darcy Lewis?” he asked incredulously.

“Hi,” the woman on the screen said with a halfhearted wave before Natasha re-appeared in the camera.

“Something really stinks,” said Natasha with a serious look, “and I have no idea where the smell is coming from.”

“Is she a threat?” he asked immediately, ignoring the woman still half in view at the edge of the screen.

“I don’t know,” said Natasha, with an apologetic glance to her right, “and neither does she.”

There was a shuffling off camera and movement at the edge of the frame. Natasha’s eyes tracked down to the right sharply. “What’s that?” she said, obviously talking to Lewis.

“I…I don’t know,” came the thin and scared response. Steve momentarily felt bad for discussing her so bluntly, but it was quickly forgotten as Nat took a sharp breath. “Take off your jacket.” She shifted the camera.

He could see the shock clear as day on Ms. Lewis’s face, but that wasn’t what caught his attention. Her jacket now hung off one arm, baring the other in a short sleeved black t-shirt. Disappearing under the sleeve and spanning the length of her arm down to the base of her fingers was a thick covering of tattooed script and diagrams, running in whorls and lines, creating a pattern that was as beautiful as it was disturbing.

Steve touched the monitor, tracing carefully drawn lines until he reached her bicep, where one symbol stood out from the rest: a scull drawn in red ink, tentacles curling in the same angry color below it.

 

Steve felt a sudden sinking in the pit of his stomach, and an accompanying jolt of fear for his teammate sitting unnaturally still on the screen in front of him.

“Bring her in Nat. Now.”


	2. Changes

All great changes are preceded by chaos

\-- Deepak Chopra

 

The quinjet landed on the roof of the Avengers compound in the darkest part of the night, but the landing pad was lit as bright as day with giant floodlights.

When Natasha walked a still pale but stoic Darcy Lewis down the ramp and onto the deck, they were met with twelve armed agents, guns trained.

Darcy reflexively threw her hands up in the air.

“Stand down,” barked Nat sharply, “She’s unarmed.”

“Captain’s orders,” said the lead agent, firearm still trained on Darcy, “until the threat level can be assessed.”

“Its fine,” said Darcy thinly, “I get it Nat, its fine.”

The trip from Belarus to the U.S. had convinced Natasha that Darcy Lewis was not a threat, at least not consciously. Natasha knew better than most the kind of darkness that could lurk beneath the surface.

Well, they would know soon enough.

Natasha stubbornly stuck by Darcy’s side, a hand at her elbow half meant as comfort but also because Natasha knew she could take the woman at her side down without taking her out, and the same could not be said for the armed agents that walked in formation around them.

When they reached the med wing she stood there, glaring at the rest of the staff, until Darcy had been put under for scanning and assessment.

When she stalked out of the room, she found the Captain standing at the viewport that looking in on Ms. Lewis with a complicated expression on his face.

“You know it’s a precaution we have to take,” said Steve, without looking at her.

“I know,” she said evenly, coming to stand beside him.

“And I’m sure that if she is a threat, it’s not by choice.” He added staunchly.

“No, she didn’t choose this,” said Nat tightly.

“Neither did you,” said Steve, showing an insight that Natasha truly detested about him sometimes.

“She’s not me,” said Nat, “She doesn’t have to take this road.”

“Nat,” said Steve, putting a hand on her arm, “She’s not a civilian any more, and we both know that she never will be again.”

Nat pulled her arm away, turned on her heel, and walked down the hall.

+

+

It was almost 36 hours before the medical team was ready to report.

“It’s both better and worse than expected,” said the lead physician to the group assembled around the boardroom table.

“That’s not exactly a helpful statement,” said Hill with a raised eyebrow.

“She’s not a threat, not to us – at least unless she chooses to be.” The doctor went on. “We can find no evidence of the sort of neural damage that indicates triggers or programming. Hydra conditioning leaves very particular markers on sleeper agents, and none of them are present in Ms. Lewis.”

“What about other forms of conditioning,” asked Hill, “Hydra isn’t the only…”

“We know Hydra had her,” said the doctor quickly, “at least for some of the time.”

“How?” asked Steve.

“They didn’t condition her with any triggers, but hallmarks of hydra interference are all over her scans.”

“What did they do?” asked Nat tightly.

“We don’t know,” he said shortly, “there have been alterations made to neural and auditory centers, as well as long term memory storage. But she’s been partially wiped, so it’s hard to know.”

“Partially wiped?” asked Hill.

“That’s the strangest part,” said the doctor. “From what we can tell, whatever Hydra did to her, it was more than two years ago. But we can also see clear evidence of a wipe likely just before Agent Romanov found her.”

“Why would hydra leave her alone for two years and then wipe her?” asked Steve.

“I don’t think it was hydra that wiped her,” said the doctor. “It was their technology, for sure, but I have never seen a victim of a hydra wipe who was left with _anything_ besides selected conscious memories. Ms. Lewis appears to have completely intact long term memory; it simply stops three years ago.”

“So you’re saying that Hydra took her, messed around with her brain, let her go, and then someone _else_ wiped the last three years from her head?” Hill asked incredulously.

“Well, I won’t speculate on whether Hydra let her go or not, but from what her brain scans can tell us, yes, that’s about it.” The doctor looked as perplexed as the agents around the table.

“And the tattoos?” Natasha asked.

“They’re fresh,” said the doctor, “All of them done within about a week. Must have hurt like a b...” the doctor stopped, clearing his throat at the Captain’s raised eyebrow. “It must have been very painful. Beyond that, deciphering what they mean is your job.”

When the doctor left the room, they sat in silence for a long moment.

“Well,” the Captain finally said, “the real question now is who has to tell Thor about all this.”

“He’s not going to be pleased, is he?” Hill said, rubbing her temple.

“What are you doing Nat?” Steve asked as Natasha pointedly raised a finger to the side of her nose.

“It’s the universal symbol for not it.” Natasha said firmly.

Steve let out a long sigh. “I’ll get in touch.”

+

+

She half surfaced from her drug induced sleep, tossing fitfully, part way to consciousness. She dreamed that she was running. A man in front of her shouted over his shoulder to pick up the pace. She swore at him, and he smiled.

She sat up with a start and a gasp.

“Darcy?”

It took a moment for the face of the woman sitting beside her bed to connect to her memories, and then she threw her arms around the smaller woman fiercely.

“Jane!” she half sobbed against her hair. “What’s happening to me?”

“Darcy,” the usually stoic and sarcastic physicist spoke with a thick voice, “you’re alive. Oh my god, you’re really alive.”

“More or less,” she sniffled, pulling back. “Did they tell you anything?”

“They might have,” she said, “I wasn’t really listening…Darcy, I…”

Likely summoned by the beeping of her medical equipment, a man she recognized from the grainy video feed in Belarus strode into the room.

“Ms. Lewis,” he said brusquely, “now that you’re awake, we’d like to talk to you.”

Darcy blinked at him for a moment. “You’re the Captain right?” she asked, “Like, _the_ Captain, Captain America?”

He looked at her curiously, and then nodded.

“So you’re the Captain who ordered a dozen men to point their guns at me when I showed up here?”

Beside her, Jane made an indignant noise and glared at him.

“We had reason to take precautions,” he said somewhat defensively.

“Oh sure,” said Darcy, looking at him warily. “But that doesn’t mean I have to like it.”

“Fine,” he said, looking at her with a raised eyebrow, “but we still need to talk to you. You’re expected in briefing room C in ten minutes.” He turned on his heel and walked out.

“Boy he is just a ball of sunshine,” said Darcy sarcastically as he walked out.

Jane looked at her steadily. “Darce, you should get dressed.”

“Oh come on, I’m sure it can wait a few…”

“Darcy,” Jane interrupted her, “whatever is going on is important enough that _Captain America_ was watching your vitals to see when you woke up and came in here _personally_ to call you into a meeting.”

Darcy looked at her wide eyed for a minute, and then began scrambling out of the bed.

+

+

It was only Natasha and the Captain waiting for her when she found her way to briefing room C. And by “found her way” she meant “escorted by armed guard”. Although it was only one this time, and her weapon remained holstered. So…progress?

“Darcy,” said Natasha as she sat down warily, “how are you feeling.”

“Really fucking wierded out,” she said, tugging at the long sleeves of her SHIELD issue grey shirt in a vain attempt to cover the edges of the tattoos on her arms.

“Understandable,” said Natasha shortly, “unfortunately we don’t have the luxury of being delicate.”

Darcy let out a sharp breath. “Okay,” she said finally, “what do you know?”

“We know you’ve been missing for three years,” Natasha began, “and we know you spent at least some of that time, likely the first month or so, on ice.”

“On ice?” asked Darcy.

“Cryogenically frozen,” Nat answered. “Dr. Foster immediately asked Asgard for help locating you. They couldn’t find you. This is why you were presumed dead.”

“Oh,” said Darcy hollowly, “Did they…Did they tell my parents that…”

“Yes,” said Nat shortly. “As far as the world outside of this facility is concerned, you are dead.”

She sat back heavily in her chair.

“So Asgard’s tracking system can’t see through ice?” she asked, more as a distraction than anything else.

“As far as we understand,” Nat said, “whatever Asgard uses to find people works on biorhythms. Yours was known to them, so they would be able to find you anywhere, if they looked hard enough. But in stasis…”

“I didn’t really have any biorhythms.” Darcy finished for her.

“Right,” said Nat.

“So any clues other than that I spent some time as a popsicle?” she asked, “No offense Cap,” she cut at him in what was clearly an intentionally offensive tone.

Nat raised an eyebrow but answered anyways. “Our med team spent the last two days running every kind of scan we have.” She said. “As far as we can tell, you were held by Hydra. We know they didn’t leave any triggers in your head, which is a good thing. But they did do _something_. We don’t know exactly what, because you were wiped very recently. We don’t think that was Hydra though. They don’t tend to leave any happy memories behind.”

“Well that’s…I don’t have any idea what to do with that information.” Darcy said weakly.

“Our working hypothesis is that you escaped or were released over two years ago,” said Nat. “You’ve certainly changed since SHIELD last interviewed you in London, physically as well as your abilities. We don’t know if that was Hydra or someone else. We don’t think Hydra was responsible for the tattoos based on some of the content we’ve seen, and we don’t think they were responsible for the wipe. So it’s probable you’ve been somewhere else.”

“That’s way more probablys and maybes than I am comfortable with,” Darcy said, sounding shell shocked. “And what the hell is Hydra?” she asked.

Nat and the Captain looked at each other.

“Well,” said Nat dryly, “it’s nice to know that you didn’t actually look at all the SHIELD files you gained access to when you hacked us back in Puente Antiguo.”

“Hey!” Darcy exclaimed defensively, “that was _one_ time and you guys were holding _Thor_ prisoner, what was I supposed to do?”

“Darcy,” said Natasha, “If SHIELD was going to come down on you for that, we would have done so a long time ago. Mostly, you’re a bit of a legend among our computer security team. You shouldn’t have been able to do it.”

“Oh,” said Darcy, mollified and a bit proud, “so, Hydra?”

“That’s where the Captain comes in,” said Nat.

He raised an eyebrow at her, but took over. “They started as a branch of Nazi weapons designers and scientists,” he said, “but they got into some…well, they got their hands on power that people shouldn’t have and branched off from the Nazis. We thought they had been destroyed at the end of the Second World War, but they just went underground, worked with the Russians during the cold war. About a year ago, we found out that they had infiltrated SHIELD from its earliest days and to its highest levels. We’re still rebuilding the organization from the ground up.”

“They took down SHIELD?” asked Darcy in shock.

“Well, more accurately, we took SHIELD down and…never mind. The specifics aren’t important right now.”

“And why is it that you’re so sure that Hydra is involved here?” Darcy asked.

“Well for one thing,” said the Captain, “their particular brand of work with human physiology leaves its marks,” he said tightly, “and more importantly,” he reached over to her and shoved her sleeve up. There on her left arm, in bold red ink, was the shape of a tentacled skull.

“Someone left their calling card on my arm?” she guessed weakly.

The Captain nodded.

“Oh,” Darcy swallowed, “so I guess we should probably figure out what the hell they or whoever else felt was important enough to permanently tattoo on me, right?”

+

+

She stood in a clean white room, the light so bright it made her wince.

The Captain’s voice crackled across the comm system.

“Ms. Lewis, we need you to remove your shirt.”

Darcy huffed out a half incredulous breath. Captain America sounded just about as shocked as she was to hear those words coming out of his mouth.

But she dutifully pulled her shirt over her head, willing herself not to crane to see how far the tattoos stretched.

There was a muted cough over the comms.

“It appears as though there is some text that we can’t currently capture Ms. Lewis. We’re going to have to ask you to remove your pants.”

Later, she was very sure she was going to have a prolonged mental breakdown, but right now her life was apparently a surrealist play, so what was there to do but to go with that?

“Wait,” the Captain’s voice lost it’s awkwardly over professional tone. “What’s that? Can you zoom in?” There was a muted response which must be from the control room.

“Ms. Lewis, please hold still for a moment.”

The silence drew out until she felt the urge to shift like an impatient child.

“Ms. Lewis,” the Captain’s voice finally rang out again, “Does the name Vincent Gregarin mean anything to you?”

“No,” she said, “Should it?”

This time, it was Nat’s voice over the comms. “Well it’s tattooed on your ass,” she said, “along with next Wednesday’s date and geocoordinates. We thought we’d at least ask.”


	3. Learning

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so sorry for the long delay! I promise I have not abandoned this story. Real life really gets in the way sometimes :) Thanks to bulmavegotaku and nessismore who beta'd this chatper, like, a month ago for me...

Tell me and I forget, teach me and I may remember, involve me and I learn. ― [Benjamin Franklin](http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/289513.Benjamin_Franklin)

 

“We have a complete map of the tattoos,” Maria Hill spoke briskly and without any of the Captain’s lingering discomfort. “We’re having our analysts do what they can. But for now, we are most interested in the name Vincent Gregarin and why it is on your ass.”

Darcy winced. “Do we have to keep saying it like that?”

“Would you prefer posterior?” asked Hill, looking like she actually meant it.

Darcy shook her head mutely and Hill went on.

“We’ve been trying to get a line on Gregarin for years. He’s taken out six highly trained agents over the last few years, but he’s invisible. We haven’t been able to so much as capture a grainy photo of him.”

Darcy cocked her head to one side. “You don’t know what he looks like,” she said.

“No, we do not,” said Hill.

“So sending a SHIELD agent out to the location is likely to get you absolutely nowhere because they wont be able to ID him,” she went on, her fingers tightening around the arms of her chair.

“Right,” said Hill.

“So send me,” Darcy said firmly.

“I don’t see how that’s an option Ms. Lewis,” the Captain cut in. “We are not in the habit of sending civilians out into the field.”

“I’m not a civilian,” she said stiffly, “and we both know I’m never going to be one again.”

She saw Natasha and the Captain tense at her words and she didn’t know what it meant. Probably nothing good.

“Look,” Darcy pushed through, “I’m not going to recognize this guy any more than an agent, but he might recognize me and ID himself. I’m your best shot to bring this guy in and you know it.”

Hill looked at her for a long moment.

“Well,” she said finally, looking at the Captain, “I guess you have until next Wednesday to get Ms. Lewis up to speed, Captain.”

+

+

“Nat...do you think she heard…” Steve started as they walked out of the briefing room together.

“Impossible. She was unconscious. And we were on the other side of reinforced glass. Has to be coincidence.”

“She knew who I was Nat, on sight. How many people can ID me that easily?”

Nat paused, considering “She knew I was SHIELD, too.”

“Something very weird is going on here,” said Steve, “and I don’t like it.”

+

+

A basic SHIELD fitness test showed what Darcy had already begun to suspect. In the three years she had been missing, her fitness level had increased dramatically, in strength, endurance and precision.

The real surprises started coming when she stood across the mat from the Captain.

“We need to know what you can do in order to properly structure this mission.”

“I’m afraid the answer is going to be not much,” she said dryly, amused in spite of herself at his incredibly obvious lack of enthusiasm. “You probably could have sent some low level junior agent to do this, you know.”

“It’s my op,” the Captain said tightly, “So I’m going to be the one testing you.”

“Fine.” She was already dreading how much time she was probably going to have to spend with the tightly wound man standing across from her, “test me.”

Without warning, he threw a swift right cross directly at her face.

She didn’t think, just reacted, swinging to her right and whirling around, catching him in the small of his back with her left foot and causing him to stumble forward.

He stepped back, regarding her carefully. But he did not look impressed, he looked suspicious.

Darcy, who was beginning to think she had been in shock, floating above this situation ever since she woke up in Belarus, was starting to realize what missing three years of memories could mean.

She had no idea who she was anymore.

“Hit me,” the Captain ordered sharply. “Try an attack.”

She was struggling to control her racing breath, but he did not look like he was in a mood to mess around. She stepped in and threw a punch.

It wasn’t as bad as it would have been before she had disappeared, but it wasn’t great either. Well balanced and aimed, but predictable. The Captain dodged it easily, grabbing her arm and hauling her down as he brought a knee up.

Again, when she wasn’t _trying_ to do anything, just reacting, she managed to get her own knee in the way of his, protecting her midsection and twisting out of his grasp.

He looked at her narrowly and then turned on his heel, barking at her to follow him as he went.

She couldn’t think of anything to do but trail along behind him, her head spinning. He led her to a gun range where a disassembled hand gun lay waiting, spread out on a table.

“Put it together,” he said, watching her with his arms crossed.

She obediently picked up the pieces and tried to make sense of them, but nothing was coming to mind.

The Captain raised an eyebrow and strode to a locked cabinet on the other side of the room, opening it and fetching a selection of different fire arms.

She was fiddling with the pieces of the gun in front of her while she watched him.

She didn’t notice, until she heard the smooth click of the firing mechanism, that she now held a perfectly assembled firearm in her hands.

She did notice, though, that the line of the Captain’s shoulders was drawing tight and he was clenching his jaw.

“Shoot,” he said, tossing her a cartridge.

This time, she willed herself not to dwell on what was happening. As much as whatever was happening here appeared to be pissing off the Captain, she wanted to know what was going on.

She let her concentration wander a bit as she locked the clip into place and took aim. She fired off three shots in quick succession, all hitting the target at the other end of the range at center mass. Two of them were pretty damn close to the center.

“Again,” said the Captain, flicking a switch that started a series of targets moving across the back of the range.

It was easier not to think so hard this way, just tracking the motion in front of her and not thinking about the weapon in her hands.

When the targets stopped, each of them had a neat hole at dead center.

She dropped the gun on the ledge in front of her, hands gripping the half wall of the range white knuckled and her breath coming short.

The Captain, it appeared, did not notice her distress. He wheeled her around with a hand on her shoulder.

“Who are you,” he snarled at her, “What are you doing here?”

“I don’t know,” she said, her voice thick with panic.

“The hell you don’t,” he said fiercely, his face inches from hers. “No one shoots like that without knowing how.”

“I _don’t know_!” she shouted, pushing back at him, trying to get some space, “I just…stop thinking about it and it happens. Like muscle memory. I have no idea where I learned to do it, or why, or where the hell I’ve _been_ for three years or with who. I just don’t _know,_ okay?”

She could feel the tears welling up at the corner of her eyes and panic constricting her throat. She willed herself to get a handle on it, tried to calm her breathing.

He crossed his arms and stared at her.

“What you said before, about not being a civilian anymore, where did you hear that?”

She thought it was an odd question, because she didn’t remember hearing it anywhere. But something rather strange happened when he asked the question. A clear and perfect memory of an overheard conversation between the Captain and Natasha floated up, as if surfacing from underwater.

“You said it,” she said…feeling shaken, “to Natasha.”

“You were in a medically induced coma,” he said, staring her down like she was a target. “You can’t have heard that.” He reached out again, gripping her arms painfully “Who the hell are you working for?”

And she couldn’t help it. Maybe who she had become over the last three years would have been stoic in the face of being accused like this by Captain America, who was supposed to be the best of the good guys, but Darcy only remembered being an intern out of her depth.

She let out a choked sob, tears coming to her eyes. Her head dropped and shoulders slumped as she tried to hide her face.

The Captain immediately dropped her arms and stepped back, but he didn’t say anything.

After a moment, she managed a shuddering breath, her arms held tight around herself.

“Maybe I am the bad guy,” she said, “But…the way I see it, I wouldn’t have sat still for this --” she pulled up a sleeve to reveal the tattoos on her arm, “--if I wasn’t cooperating. And I swear to you, I would not have cooperated if I didn’t think I was doing something good. So maybe…maybe I knew something and I thought I could help. I hope…I hope that no matter what happened to me, that is what I would choose.”

The words, by the end of it, were more for herself than for him.

When she finally looked up, he still looked wary, but not as angry, not as ready to strike out.

“You really have no idea, do you?” he said, and she thought he looked tired somehow.

She had no response for that, because of course she didn’t. She had no idea about a lot of things.

He let out a heavy sigh and sat down on the bench that ran along the wall of the firing range, dropping his head into his hands.

“We know that Hydra is involved,” he said finally, “and you have no idea what that means, do you?”

“No,” she said stiffly, not sure she really wanted to find out, but knowing she had to.

“They kill without a second thought. They stole my best friend from me, turned him into a killer, and now he’s out there somewhere on his own. They stole Natasha from her parents when she was a child, made her murder for them. They were the reason I lost 70 years in the ice. They turned SHIELD into their own weapon and we had to burn it down to the ground.”

Darcy swallowed slowly as he paused, a feeling like ice running through her veins. This is who was responsible for her disappearance? How in the hell had someone like her survived that? Come back from that?

“So you can understand,” he said wearily, “why I’m hesitant to trust you.”

She nodded slowly. “I can understand that,” she said, “And I didn’t know…I mean, I still have no idea what I’m involved in really. But you have to understand,” she said her hands clenched in fists beside her, “I don’t trust me either.”

+

+

Their working relationship, if you could call it that, got better over the next week as they worked to prepare their operation.

Mostly, she thought, it was because he kept his distance.

He was a constant lurking presence while she spent hours every day training with Natasha, trying to figure out what she knew, what she could do. Trying to access some of the skills that only seemed to come unconsciously. She could see him watching, cataloguing, but at least he didn’t say much.

Strategy meetings were different. There, he did all the talking and Darcy did her best to take in as much as she could, tried to feel prepared for this world she had found herself in.

She was as startled as anyone when she was able to repeat the mission plan verbatim after hearing it only once.

She didn’t like being surprised like that by what she could do like that. She could see that it was raising questions for others, and they looked at her as if she could explain, but she had no answers.

Finally, the preparation was over, or it had to be, because she was due to meet with Vincent Gregarin, one of SHIELD’s most wanted, in a very seedy club on the wrong side of Moscow in an hour.

In the Quinjet, she pulled fruitlessly at the hem on her dress. Natasha had done recon on the spot for the meet, and had told her that this was the best way to blend in.

She thought that the incredibly short and skin tight blank dress, big hair, and make up so thick that she almost didn’t recognize herself were a sure way to stand out, but what did she know?

At any rate, she had to admit that the tall boots with reasonable wedge heels and the stretchy fabric of the dress both made it easy to move and to hide a few blades on her.

The long, silent flight was beginning to get to her though. She may have realized over the past week that whoever she had become, it was someone who knew what they were doing. But she didn’t know that woman.

She still felt like this all must be a bad dream and she was about to wake up from an impromptu nap on Jane’s lab bench.

She pulled at the long sleeves of the dress, covering the edges of the tattoos that threatened to show.

It was a mixture of relief and terror that she felt when the jet landed silently on the roof of a building, stealth mode hiding them from onlookers. At least all the waiting was over now.

The Captain walked up to her briskly.

“Here is your receiver,” he said, passing her a small, clear earpiece that was invisible once she put it into her ear.

“Can you hear me?” the echo effect of the Captain’s voice right beside her and also in her ear was a bit dizzying.

“And your transmitter,” he passed her a short silver necklace with a small red gem hanging from it that she knew concealed a tiny camera and microphone.

She struggled with it for a moment before the Captain let out a stiff sigh, swept her curled and teased hair out of the way and fastened it for her.

“Thanks,” she said nervously, her fingers still pulling at the edge of her dress.

“I can hear you loud and clear,” was his only response. “Widow, do you have video?”

She heard Natasha’s voice in her ear from where they had dropped her to set up surveillance. “Video is up and running. Lethe is green.”

“Lethe?” said Darcy, confused.

“Code name,” said the Captain shortly.

As the name connected with a half forgotten history lesson, she couldn’t conceal a surprised snort of laughter. “Really? The river of forgetfulness?” she asked with a raised eyebrow.

She could have _sworn_ she saw the edge of a smile on the Captain’s usually humorless face.

“Copy that Widow, Lethe is green.” He gestured her towards the stairwell that led off the roof. “Alright,” he said, all business once again, “let’s go.”

The Captain set up in an abandoned apartment just above the club. They ran through the plan one more time, and then she was on her own.

Well, sort of. The Captain’s voice was clear and steady in your ear.

“Alright, when you come around from the back of the building, you will see the doorman against the south wall. Just remember, you belong here, you’ve probably been here before.”

Darcy took a deep breath and strode as confidently as she knew how towards the towering man who stood outside an otherwise non-descript doorway.

Before she could even reach him, he called out to her “Вы ищете кого-то не хватает?” The clear understanding of his words, _are you looking for someone, miss?_ Came instantly to her mind.

“He’s asking if you’re looking for someone,” came Natasha’s voice over the comms.

“Don’t worry,” came the Captain’s voice in her ear. “You were meant to be here. Answer in English.”

She rolled her eyes. Even the pre-disappearance Darcy had known how to talk her way into a club.

 _Maybe I’m looking for you_ was what she opened her mouth to say, a broad smile that she didn’t feel plastered across her face, but what came out was. “может быть, я ищу для вас”

“Is that you, myshka?” the man’s imposing tone immediately became light hearted and jovial. “You don’t call, you don’t write?” His thick accent tripped over the syllables.

“I come and go as I please,” she said to him with a wink. “Now are you going to let me in from the cold?”

“Yes, yes, of course,” the man opened the door for her, “I assume you’re here to see the boss?”

She just nodded once.

“He’s upstairs, I’ll let Yuri know you’re coming, he will let you in.”

“Always a pleasure,” she said, throwing him her most charming smile as she walked into the dark hallway behind the door.

As soon as it had closed behind her she hissed, “I have no idea where upstairs is. What do I do?”

“Take a breath,” said the Captain, “Widow is pulling up the plans, just keep walking straight ahead for now.” He paused, “Do you know who that man is?” he asked.

“No idea,” she whispered absently.

“I didn’t know you could speak Russian,” he added.

“Neither did I,” she whispered, voice tense, “there’s a stairway ahead.”

“Widow says take it, there should be a guarded steel door at the top, must be Gregarin’s office.”

Sure enough, a mean looking man with a scar across his left cheek stood at the top of the stairs.

“Yuri,” she said as she approached.

The snarl on the man’s face as he punched in a key code and opened the door for her suggested that they had probably met before and it had probably not gone all that well.

She suppressed a shudder.

That Russian mobster knew more about the past three years of her life than she did.

When she walked into the room behind the door, there was a man sitting behind a large, imposing desk. And then he looked up, and it took everything she had to hold herself together.

It was like when conversations or languages or lost facts came floating into her mind, but this was nothing so simple or comprehensible. She saw blood, she remembered pain, but whose she couldn’t quite tell. She saw Yuri, the wound on his face fresh. And a name. Project Valhalla

“So,” said the man, oblivious to her inner panic, “you have come back have you? And without your shadow? Hardly very wise of you.”

She just stood there, unable to respond.

“Lethe,” the Captains voice was low in her ear. “Answer him.”

“Still,” Gregarin went on, standing and moving around to the front of the desk, “what happened to the shipment wasn’t your fault. And you were always very good at getting me what I wanted. Tell me, what are you doing here?”

She was frozen. Nothing was coming to her now.

“Lethe,” the Captain’s voice was calm and even, “we’ve got the photo, just tell him whatever you need to get out of there. Tell him you missed him, tell him you were just in town. Anything.”

“I’m here about Project Valhalla” she said suddenly, watching intently for the other man’s reaction.

His eyebrows went up in surprise.

“My my,” he said. “You have been a busy little American,” he grinned at her in a way that made her feel dirty right down to the core. “I suppose Preston sent you, yes?”

She nodded.

The Captain was silent in her ear.

“Well you can tell him, that I will not change the schedule. Not for him. And he was foolish to send you to try to alter the deal.” His smile had turned sinister.

“Well,” he continued, his hand sliding under the lip of the desk, “not _tell_ him precisely, but I think he’ll get the message.”

And all of a sudden, Darcy was staring down the barrel of a gun trained directly between her eyes.

“I am sorry to do this, darling,” he drawled at her. “But you have interfered with my business too many times.”

“Stay calm,” the Captains voice in her ear cut through her frozen panic. “Stop thinking, just act.”

“Vincent,” she said steadily, “you’re being very foolish right now.”

“What are you going to do, little American?” he asked, taking a step towards her. “No bodyguard here to step in.”

“What made you think he was my bodyguard?” she heard herself say, as she reached into her boot, drew a blade, and sent it flying all in one smooth motion.

She heard Gregarin cry out, and heard his gun clatter to the floor. His hand lay splayed against the front of the desk, neatly pinned through the middle.

“ _Jesus_ ,” she heard the Captain’s hushed curse in her ear.

“You would be wise,” she said, her head buzzing even as she pressed forward instinctively, “to take Mr. Preston’s suggestions into consideration in the future.”

He just looked at her, pain and fear in his eyes. So she turned on her heel, and strode out.

“Leaving so soon?” Yuri growled at her, blocking the open door.

“Step aside,” she said tightly. She could feel her panic rising, the buzzing in her head blocking out any hope of just _acting_ again.

Yuri could no doubt see Gregarin behind her, now slumped to the floor, his hand pinned above his head.

“You will pay this time,” he hissed at her.

“Lethe, do you have this?” the Captain sounded concerned as she just stood there, facing the lumbering hulk of a man in front of her. He sounded like he was moving.

“No,” she said simply.

Yuri cocked his head, looking confused for a moment. And then all of a sudden his eyes went wide and he crumpled to the floor.

The Captain was standing behind him with a length of steel pipe in his hand.

“You good?” he asked.

She nodded, looking sideways at the huge man lying unconscious on the floor.

Say what you will about the Captain, he clearly packed a hell of a punch.

In that moment a metal grate slammed down behind them, blocking their path down the stairs.

The Captain whirled to face it, quickly spotting the numbered panel to the right of the gate. “Widow,” he called, “We’ve triggered an alarm. Any ideas? Can you hack it?”

“Separate circuit,” she said tightly, “Lethe has footage of the other code being entered, I’ll see if I can get it, worth a try.”

“28673” said Darcy at once.

The Captain punched in the code, and the grate retreated. He looked back at her curiously for a moment.

“We got it Widow,” he said. And then, gesturing for her to go ahead “Lets go.” She didn’t think twice about having him at her back as they ran for the stairs.


	4. The Unexpected

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I've been getting a lot of specific Blindspot related questions. I thought I should clarify. I have never actually seen an episode of Blindspot. So this is more "inspired by the concept" than a true AU. :)

If history repeats itself, and the unexpected always happens, how incapable must Man be of learning from experience.

  * George Bernard Shaw



 

“Alright,” Hill cut across the chatter of a few analysts well into the second hour of the mission debrief.

Darcy just wanted to sleep, and she really needed a shower.

“Let’s recap what we’ve learned.”

“We’ve got Gregarin’s photo and location,” said one analyst.

“We know he is somehow connected to Gray Preston,” said another, “and that they are working on something called Project Valhalla.”

“And,” added the Captain, “We know that Lewis, at least at one point, was working with someone else, this shadow or bodyguard.”

“Any insight Lewis?” asked Hill.

“Not really…” she sighed, rubbing at her temples, “when I saw Gregarin it was like…like a flash or something. I think I worked for him, maybe did a job for him? There was blood. That guy Yuri was there. And the name, Project Valhalla, I didn’t get anything more than that.

“And this shadow of yours?” Hill followed up, but Darcy just shrugged.

“Fine,” said Hill stiffly, “Let run this new information and see what we can come up with.” She looked over to Darcy, Natasha, and the Captain. “You’re dismissed.”

She bolted back to the quarters that had been assigned to her before anyone could ask her any more questions.

+

+

When she returned to the stark and Spartan accommodation that she had been provided, she was greeted with the first welcome sight she had seen in days. She had been kept largely isolated, focused on training and the subject of study, in the weeks leading up to the Gregarin operation.

Now, she found Jane and Thor waiting impatiently outside of her quarters.

She took a few halting steps towards them, and then pulled up short. Other than her brief reunion with Jane in the med ward, before she had really discovered how much of a stranger she was to herself, she hadn’t really had any interaction with anyone who knew her Before.

“Lady Darcy,” Thor pushed away from the wall, a hand on Jane’s forearm, holding her back even though she was vibrating with energy. “You are afraid to see us.”

It wasn’t really a question. She forgot, sometimes - or, she remembered that before, she used to forget – that he was a _god_ and a _prince_. She was never more aware of it than right now.

And something swimming up from deep inside her was screaming at her that he was a _threat_.

“I’m not…” she tried to explain, seeing Jane look to Thor at his words, hurt and confusion in her eyes. “I don’t know who I am anymore.”

Thor smiled at her, kindly, and a little sadly. “Whoever you have become,” he said, “it does not change who you are. You will always be my lightening sister.”

No longer willing to be held back by Thor’s calming arm, Jane lurched forward, “And you’ll always be my…” she trailed off.

“Lab assistant?” Darcy suggested with a wan smile.

“Best friend,” Jane finished with a watery grin.

And, looking at two of the people who knew her best in the world, she was willing to let herself believe them. Her shoulder’s relaxed, and she could feel her eyes welling up with weeks’ worth of unshed tears.

“I don’t know about you guys,” she said, “but I could really use a drink.”

+

+

The next day, she was called into a meeting just after breakfast. She was still tired, and her head felt a bit cottony, but she felt more herself. And at the same time, after hearing the Coles Notes version of three years of news from Jane and Thor, farther away.

“Ms. Lewis,” it was just the Captain and Natasha waiting for her, no Hill, no analysts. She wasn’t sure if it was better or worse.

“Firstly,” the Captain began stiffly as she sat, “despite some unexpected upsets, you should know that we consider the mission successful.”

Natasha raised an eyebrow at him. “What Rogers is _trying_ to say,” she said, “is that you did a good job.”

“Oh,” said Darcy, surprised, “Well…thanks, I guess.” She was still trying to avoid thinking about how she had thrown a _knife_ at someone. She didn’t really want to think about the fact that this, apparently, meant that she had done well.

“The analysts have been able to make a bit more sense of your tattoos with the new information,” Natasha went on, calling up a graphic representation of the tattoos on the large screen that covered one wall.

“They’ve been able, using the particular color of ink and script style, to separate them into a series of messages,” the graphic split into a number of smaller groupings. “And it looks like each message contains a limited amount of information, many of them coded.”

“What kind of information,” Darcy asked, staring at the screen, because it was easier to handle than looking down at herself.

“Names, dates, locations, codes, diagrams, useful information,” Natasha said, “once we can tie it to something.” She paused, “Except for one.”

Darcy raised an eyebrow and Natasha brought up a single line of script in a scratchy hand that she recognized as a small black line of text that ran down her right hip. She ran a thumb over it absently.

“Not marble, nor the gilded monuments,” the Captain read, “do you know what it means?”

Darcy shook her head, but unlike the alien and uncomfortable feeling that all of the other marks on her skin brought up, she found she didn’t mind this one.

“I mean, not beyond the obvious,” she finished.

“The obvious?” asked Natasha curiously.

Both the Captain and Darcy looked at her in surprise, and it was strange to feel in accord for once.

“Shakespeare’s sonnet 55,” said the Captain, “Not marble, nor the gilded monuments Of princes, shall outlive this powerful rhyme; But you shall shine more bright in these contents Than unswept stone, besmear'd with sluttish time.”

“It’s different,” Darcy said.

“Yes,” agreed Natasha, “it doesn’t fit with the rest. Our best guess is that it was a message to you, left by whoever did this, maybe whoever you were working with.”

“The script looks sort of familiar,” said the Captain, “have you run it through our database?” he asked Natasha.

“No hits,” she said, “None of this triggers anything for you?” she asked Darcy.

She shook her head, but added – because she was trying to give them everything she could – “It feels…different, though. Comfortable.” She ran her thumb over it again.

“Comfortable?” Natasha asked curiously.

“Yeah,” Darcy mused absently, looking down as if she could see the words through her pants, “Like something wanted rather than necessary.”

“Well,” said Natasha, looking at her with laser like focus, “it may lend some support to the theory that this was voluntary and that you were working with someone else by choice.”

“Or it may not,” Steve said tightly, “I don’t think we should proceed with assumptions based on vague feelings from someone who doesn’t remember the last three years.”

Both Darcy and Natasha looked at him sharply. He had the good grace to look ever so slightly chagrined.

“I’m sorry,” he said, “but it’s true.”

“We’re not making any assumptions,” said Natasha with a chastising look at him, “but we’d be fools to turn down _any_ source of information at this point.”

“Fine,” said Steve tightly, “but that’s not the point of this meeting.”

“It’s not?” asked Darcy.

“No,” he said, “the point is that we now have to assume that any meet, any individuals that we are led to by the information you have, we need to send you in.”

“Oh,” she said tightly.

“And your ability to react in combat situations is…patchy.” He added, somewhat unnecessarily. But Darcy couldn’t disagree.

“So,” he went on, “you need to be trained, and you need a proper handler.”

Darcy snorted, “Who drew the short straw on _that_ particular assignment.”

Steve and Natasha looked at each other, Steve with exasperation and Natasha with an amused grin.

“I did.” Said the Captain.

+

+

“Again.”

Darcy was beginning to hate that word. She pulled herself to her feet, readying herself again.

The Captain swept out his leg again, kicked her right in the gut again (although thankfully without all that much force) and she practiced falling again.

“You know,” she said, from her prone position, heaving for breath, “I may have forgotten how I got in such spectacular shape, but I’m pretty sure I didn’t forget becoming super human.”

She didn’t look up, but a few moments later a bottle of water came soaring towards her head. She reached out to grab it gratefully, pulling herself to a sitting position with a groan.

“You’re doing good,” he said gruffly, leaning over to give her a hand up. “I know I’m working you hard, but we don’t have the luxury of time. You could be out in the field again at any moment.”

“I get it Cap,” she said, downing about half of the bottle in one go and stepping off the mat, “I’m on board. If I’m going to do this whole secret agent thing, I’m really keen on not depending on my subconscious. I’d just like to survive the training, is all I’m saying.”

“You think that the sort of people you meet out in the field are going to give you a break because you’re tired?” the Captain asked her evenly.

“So, what?” she said, somewhat petulantly, “You feel like your job is to be worse than the bad guys?”

“Yes,” he said firmly, “If that’s what it takes to get you through this in one piece.”

“This is you trying to leave me in one piece?” she said, finishing the water.

The Captain didn’t answer, but she thought she saw the ghost of a smile.

Any moment of amusement she thought they might have been sharing was almost immediately wiped away, though, as he said “Again,” and pushed her back onto the mat.

+

+

Steve sat in the gym long after he had dismissed Darcy to go get some food and rest. At first, he was reviewing her training, thinking about the next day. But after a while, he was just sitting there, lost in thought.

He almost didn’t notice when Natasha came to join him on the bench he was sitting on.

“Careful there Cap,” she said lightly, “You’re gonna give yourself a headache if you keep thinking that hard.”

He looked up at her with a tired smile. “You saying I’m slow Romanov?”

She didn’t answer his teasing, as she often didn’t, instead heading right to the root of things.

“How’s Lewis doing?” she asked.

“Good,” he said, leaning back against the wall. “She’s strong, quick. She’s been very well trained by someone I _really_ would not want to take on in a fight. Very adaptable, no fixed style. The more she works at things, the more she seems to be remembering what her body already knows.”

“So why are you riding her so hard?” It was just a question, not an attack, but Steve felt defensive nonetheless.

“I’m not going to send her out there into the situations she’s likely to face without the skills to face them. We shouldn’t be sending her out there at _all_.” He answered sharply.

“She’s not helpless,” said Natasha, “you know that. You don’t have this kind of problem sending Clint out into the field, or Sam, or anyone else on the team who relies on skill alone.”

He let out a sigh. He knew she was right, but it felt _different_. He considered for a moment before answering.

“She didn’t choose it.” He said finally. “They did.”

“I didn’t choose it either,” said Natasha.

“And you want that for her?” Steve asked tightly.

There was an uncomfortable silence for a moment.

“Natasha,” he said carefully, turning to look at her, because he trusted her and valued her, and she deserved honesty from him, “I know that there is a lot about your past that you haven’t told me, but based on what I know…Nat, what I’m doing to her, what I have to turn her into…I feel like I’m doing to her what was done to you. I just… I just wish she didn’t have to become…like us. And I really don’t want to be the one to do it.”

He took a slow breath and settled back.

“She’s good, you know?” he said, “right to the root.”

Natasha was silent for a long moment.

“You aren’t doing this to her,” she said at last. “Hydra started it, created the need, but based on what we know right now, _she_ did this. She _chose_ to become strong. And she’ll never become what I used to be, never have a ledger to clear out. Because you’re right, she is good. Just like you.” She smiled, a little sadly. “That’s your real problem, Cap; with people like you, like her. You never really see how much more you offer to the people around you than they can ever give to you.”

She pushed herself off the bench and left without another word.

Steve sat there for a long while, wondering if he felt better or worse.

+

+

The call came in late on Thursday night.

The analysts had figured out that one of the locations listed on Darcy’s skin was owned, through a series of numbered companies, by Preston. They had also discovered that there was a gala being held there on Friday evening. There was still speculation as to what the numbered code attached to this information in the tattoo was, but consensus was that Darcy should go and see what she could discover.

“Captain,” said Hill, as they were sitting around the briefing room in the early hours of the morning, “what’s the play here.”

“Recon only,” he said quickly, “And given the nature of the event and the mission, there’s no need to send Lewis in alone.”

“Agreed,” said Hill, “I’m assuming you want to take point on this?”

He nodded at once.

And so Darcy found herself preparing to attend a red carpet gala with Captain America, with far more weapons hidden on her purpose than she ever could have imagined in such a situation.

Thankfully, this particular gala was in New York, so she could prepare herself in her quarters rather than on a transatlantic flight.

It felt oddly familiar to her, familiar to the parts of her life she actually remembered, getting dressed up and waiting for a man to knock on her door.

Although, like everything else in her life these days, there was a very thick layer of strange overlaid. She was just adjusting the holster strapped to her thigh and tucking her earpiece under her hair when a chime sounded indicating that someone was outside her quarters.

“Come in,” she said, giving herself one last look before turning to face the now open door.

Captain America, or rather, Steve Rogers, she supposed, was standing there in a beautifully cut and tailored black tuxedo, looking somewhat stiff and uncomfortable. Particularly because for the last little while, she had seen him exclusively in gym wear.

“Nice suit,” she said, giving him a quick once over.

She had to admit, as much as the lingering soreness in her muscles was still creating a bit of resentment for the guy, he cleaned up pretty damn well.

“Nice dress,” he said evenly, but he couldn’t hide the way his eyes dipped to the just this side of appropriate neckline and the expanse of leg revealed by her clinging red dress, her exposed skin covered by a synthetic layer to hide her tattoos. “Not exactly subtle,” he said with just a hint of a grin, “but nice.”

“Hey,” she said with false indignance, grabbing her clutch from the table, “normal, non-spy girls dress to get noticed at events like this.”

The Captain made a non-committal noise, “Don’t think normal girls look that…noticeable in a dress.”

If it wasn’t for his disgruntled tone, she would almost think it was a compliment.

She rolled her eyes, “Don’t worry Cap, I’ll keep it low key. Are we good to go?”

“Yeah, we’re green. Stark sent us a car. It’s waiting out front.”

+

+

“Our only goal is to avoid attracting attention and get a good look around the place, see if that code connects with anything, got it?” he asked her just as the car pulled up to the stately mansion lit with floodlights for the occasion, some sort of fundraiser Darcy thought.

“Captain,” she said dryly, “you seem to think that I _want_ to get into some kind of trouble. Get me home before ten and I’ll be happy.”

She was rewarded with a smirk that was only half exaggeration before he jumped out of the car, hurrying around to her door to open it.

“Shall we?” he asked, offering her his arm, and she could see a mask of pleasant attentiveness slide over his face.

“We shall,” she said, a wide, happy smile settling across her mouth with more ease than she would have thought. Her adrenaline was starting to run, and it made it easier to access whatever it was that she had learned about things like this over the last three years of her life, because it felt like habit to adjust to leaning into the Captain like he was really her date, finding a reason to whisper into his ear so she could check the line of sight behind him.

They worked well together, she thought. His focus and reflexes, even with something like this, were inhuman. He adapted around her without a misstep, and his observation skills were acute.

“There’s a man to your five o’clock,” he said, leaning close to her and pushing a lock of hair behind her shoulder, the fond smile on his face belied by the tension around his eyes, “he’s coming towards you. Put your arms around my shoulders so I can get you a clear line of sight.”

She did as she was told, the Captain leaning back on the bar behind them, turning her just enough so she could look at the approaching man out of the corner of her eye.

“Recognize him?” the Captain asked.

Darcy had to conceal a laugh, “No,” she said, “I think you may have been right about the dress though.”

“He’s coming to…he _noticed_ you?” the Captain looked genuinely surprised, which she tried not to find too insulting. “But you’re here with me.” He said, before pausing for a moment and adding, “I mean, as far as he knows.”

Mollified, Darcy grinned up at him. “Manners aren’t the same as they were in your day,” she said, “Now ask me to dance before I have to talk to him.”

It was out on the dance floor, the Captain turning her about in what she thought was a very passable waltz, that she saw it.

“Check out the left hand side of the balcony, right next to the window,” she whispered to him as they moved.

He turned them slowly so he could see. “Steel door,” he said, just a hint of tension creeping into his hand at her waist.

“Key pad to the right,” she added. “Shall we?”

“We shall.”

+

+

Getting to the door wasn’t difficult at all. There were plenty of couples looking for a bit of privacy or watching the dance floor from up here. All it took was waiting for a waiter to drop a tray of glasses and in the brief moment of distraction, Darcy entered the code that was written on her skin and they slipped through the door without attracting any attention.

“Widow’s looped the video,” he said as they moved quietly, weapons now drawn, down the hallway. “So we should have a bit of time.”

“Doesn’t look like we’ll need much,” Darcy says, eyes wide as they approached the end of the hallway. In front of them was a glassed in lab containing the type of equipment that one didn’t usually find in a rich man’s house.

“This is bad news,” said the Captain beside her as they stepped into the lab.

“Why in particular?” she asked, slipping a flash drive out of her dress and moving towards the computer as the Captain pulled out a small camera and started snapping photos.

“That set up over there,” he gestured to the center of the lab where something bright blue, too bright to make out clearly, was sitting suspended in some kind of field, “looks pretty familiar to me.”

“Stark got something like it?” she asked as the program on the flash drive started copying all the data in the system.

“Not Stark,” he said grimly, “Hydra, back in the 40s when they were working with the Nazis.”

She looked up at him sharply. “This is bad news.”

+

+

They managed to make it back onto the balcony without issue and headed for the stairway down to the exit as quickly as they could.

It was at the top of the stairs that their luck ran out.

“Hey,” a thick hand grabbed Darcy’s shoulder and turned her around.

She looked at the face of the man who had stopped her and immediately had a sense memory of bone chilling cold.

She carefully slipped the flash drive that she still held in her hand into the inside pocket of the Captain’s jacket. She turned her head back to him and mouthed _go_.

“I know who you are,” the man’s face was mean, and his grip was like iron. “You’re the girl that broke out of Khanovey, Fosters intern.”

She realized, with a jolt, that this man _knew_. He must know who had taken her and why. She was frozen for a moment, torn between the desire to escape and the need for _answers_.

The Captain cured her indecision by punching the man in the face.

Unfortunately, while it did result in the man releasing his grip on her, it also attracted a lot of attention. She could see two men, guns visible under their jackets, charging up the stairs.

There was only one direction they could go.

“Come on,” she grabbed Rogers by the hand and sprinted back to the steel door.

They slammed it behind them, the Captain pulling her behind him as he turned to shoot out the control panel.

“Does that actually work?” she asked as they sprinted down the hall.

“I suppose we’ll find out,” he said.

Past the lab and to the right, they found a narrow set of stairs leading down. At the bottom of two flights, they found themselves in a labyrinth of cement corridors.

“Any ideas?” Darcy asked, her breath coming heavily.

They heard shouts from the corridor down their left.

“I’m thinking right,” said the Captain, and they set off running.

They were effectively lost. Darcy had a general sense of where they were in relation to the floor plan of the main floor above them, but they had no idea if this floor stretched farther and, if so, in what directions. Natasha couldn’t find any city plans that showed this space.

It was unsurprising really, Darcy thought as they ran by a faded symbol on the wall, the mirror of the red tentacled image on her arm. Bad guys tended not to file the plans for their secret hideouts with the city.

They turned sharply around a corner, Darcy following close behind the Captain. She barely had time to skid to a stop, her gun draw and aimed, as the Captain slammed into a tall, dark figure, both of them tumbling to the ground.

The Captain quickly pulled himself to his feet, both of them aiming their side arms at the prone figure on the ground.

“S’that any way to greet an old friend, punk?” came the gravelly and tired voice from the prone form.

Darcy felt an odd thrill run up her spine, but she couldn’t attach it to anything, no memory or image.

“Bucky?”

 


	5. Getting There

How far is it?

There is mud on my feet,

Thick, red and slipping.

It is Adam's side,

This earth I rise from, and I in agony.

 

I cannot undo myself, and the train is steaming.  


Getting There – Sylvia Plath

 

“Bucky?” the Captain’s voice was thin and incredulous. “What …”

“Later,” he said, smoothly rolling to his feet, “Let’s get out of here first.”

The Captain opened his mouth once, snapped it shut, and then nodded stiffly.

They ran after the figure in front of them, through a winding pattern of turns they would never have found themselves and up a short flight of cement stairs into an alley.

They moved on into the night, hurrying a few streets away before they paused, sure that they weren’t being followed.

“Bucky,” the Captain started again, once they slowed to a walk, “What…” he didn’t seem any closer to being able to get a coherent thought out than he had been when they were on the ground.

“S’been a while,” the other man said, shoving his hands into the pockets of his black fatigue pants. “The last time…I wasn’t…I’m sorry,” the words sounded as if they were being dragged from him. Darcy almost didn’t dare breath.

“Don’t…” the Captain started, raw emotion clear in his voice. It was startling. And humanizing. Darcy had only ever seen him in absolute control of himself. “I’m just glad you’re alright…you’re…you’re okay right?”

He nodded, his expression easing. “I’m getting there,” he said.

They stopped entirely, looking at each other in silence for a long moment, until something like a smile started to grow on both of their faces. And all at once, they were embracing each other, fists clutched tight around each other’s backs, faces pressed into each other’s shoulders. She wasn’t entirely sure that one or both of them weren’t choking back sobs.

Darcy had absolutely no idea what was going on right now, but the emotion between the two men in front of her was humbling, so she just stood in silence as the minutes passed.

Finally, the Captain pulled back. “Bucky,” he started, “I should…I’ve gotta…”

“I know you have to take me in,” he said calmly. “You do what you have to.”

The Captain nodded.

“You should do it soon though,” said the other man, “because there’s no way in hell we’re not going to get noticed soon with your partner looking like that,” and he turned and _winked_ at her.

And for some reason, it made her smile rather than pissing her off.

She snorted, “So give me your jacket while the Captain calls our ride,” she said easily.

The Captain was looking at them very carefully as he pulled out his phone, but the man, Bucky, slipped of his heavy black jacket easily and slipped it over her shoulders.

All of a sudden, she got a flash of the weight of this jacket, the smell of it. She looked up at Bucky sharply. He was looking back at her with a clouded and unreadable expression.

“What…” she started, but he shook his head at her, just enough for her to notice, and she closed her mouth as Steve said “Rides here in 30 seconds.”

+

+

When they arrived back at the base, Bucky was immediately carted off to somewhere very secure with a significant number of firearms pointed at him.

Darcy sympathized with him.

The odd feeling had passed, and no new memories were coming to her, so she concluded that if she had run into this man at any point in the past three years, it was nothing significant. Surely if it was, he would be able to tell her once he had been released. So she didn’t mention it to anyone, particularly not to the Captain who seemed to have more than enough on his mind as they went through the debrief.

He was distracted, looking for the door, and Darcy kept having to fill in gaps in his story for him. He clearly wanted to be with his friend. Having heard the brief synopsis of who Bucky was, the Captain’s best friend from World War II, presumed dead, having surfaced a little over two years ago as a tool of Hydra and then disappearing again after saving the Captain’s life (right after nearly killing him…to be fair), she could understand why the Captain was anxious to go. The Captain had been waiting for two years for his friend to come back to him, and then there he was, appearing largely free of whatever control Hydra had had over him, coming in willingly.

Finally, once they had finished the rundown of the events of the evening, Hill took pity and dismissed the Captain who took off without hesitation.

Darcy sat at the briefing table across from Natasha after Hill and the other analysts had filed out. She was looking out the door with a deep look on her face.

“What’s up?” Darcy asked. While the Captain was her handler and trainer and a daily pain in her ass, Natasha had been a constant presence in whatever this new life she was building was. Darcy thought she was getting close to knowing her a little.

“I’ve met him before,” she said without looking at Darcy, “a long time ago, when he was still Hydra. He’s dangerous, and Steve won’t see it.”

“From what I saw, Steve’s only in danger of being hugged to death,” she said with a roll of her eyes.

Natasha turned to her, the corner of her mouth quirking up. “Wish you’d taken a picture of that,” she said, “I find it hard to imagine.”

“Me too,” said Darcy with a broad grin, “It wasn’t exactly an unattractive image.”

Natasha snorted at her in amusement. “Fair point, Lewis,” she said.

She was silent for a moment before she spoke again, “It’s just odd,” she said finally. “First you fall into our laps after apparently breaking out of a Hydra facility with valuable information, and now the former Winter Soldier voluntarily turns himself in? I just don’t buy that it’s a coincidence.”

‘Hmmm,” said Darcy absently. She thought for a moment about telling Natasha about the odd sense memory she had had when they ran into Bucky, but something held her back. And she had decided that pre-memory loss Darcy had some really good instincts, so she was probably best to listen to them.

“He did get us out of there though,” she added, “so even if it’s not a coincidence, maybe it’s still a good thing?”

“You’re awfully optimistic for a girl who can no longer wear short sleeves,” said Natasha dryly.

Darcy shrugged, “I don’t know, it just seems like we’re making progress. We know about Project Valhalla we know that Preston is Hydra, the analysts think that his company is probably involved as well, and the science geeks will hopefully get some good intel out of the information we stole. I’m trying to think positive.”

“I suppose someone has to,” said Natasha, rolling to her feet, “Desert?” she asked.

“This place has desert?” she asked.

“If you know where Hill hides her ice cream,” said Natasha calmly, “Come on.”

+

+

Based on the meeting they were called to a few days later, the analysts seemed to agree that they were making progress.

Preston’s company, a leading global telecom conglomerate, could indeed be tied to Hydra. They were able to discover that they had been working on containment fields, something to stabilize enormous amounts of energy.

And, most interesting to Darcy, the hint that had been dropped about her had led to good information.

At this point, it was clear that she had been taken for her connection to Jane. There would have been no reason to keep her for a year if they just wanted information from her, she would have been killed long before then.

The facility she had apparently escaped from was tied to a lot of their neurological experimentation. The analysts thought that Hydra was working on some way to return Darcy to Jane with some sort of modification that would assist them. It wasn’t a sleeper trigger, and it seemed to have something to do with her memory centers, but beyond that they couldn’t be sure.

They also knew that that particular facility had been razed to the ground, and not by SHIELD, a little more than a year after she had disappeared, so they knew that Darcy had been out of Hydra’s hands since that time.

The Captain wasn’t at the meeting, and Darcy hadn’t seen him since the debrief a few days ago. Natasha had taken over working with her for the time being.

It wasn’t all that surprising really. Bucky was being taken through a similar set of scans as Darcy had when she had been brought in. However, since it turned out he had a biomechanical arm that could crunch through a steel door, and given that the last time he had interacted with SHIELD, it wasn’t exactly cordial, they were nowhere near as willing to give him the benefit of any doubt.

In fact, it was another solid week before, one morning, the Captain was there waiting for her in the gym, looking…lighter, somehow.

“Hey,” she greeted him, “Back from the honeymoon?”

He rolled his eyes at her, “Thought I’d stop letting you get off easy on training.”

“Be careful there Captain,” she said as they stepped onto the mats, “or I’ll tell Natasha that you think she’s easy.”

He raised an eyebrow at her, “That’s playing dirty,” he said.

“It’s playing to win Cap,” she cut back.

“You know,” he said as they stretched, “I do have a name other than ‘Captain’.”

“Hmmmph,” she responded non-commitally. Somehow it seemed like a dangerous idea to get to friendly with the Captain, something in those deep instincts she was learning to trust was very wary of it.

“So your friend is doing okay?” she asked to change the subject.

“Yeah,” he said, “They let him out of containment today.”

“That’s great,” she said, genuinely pleased for him, but not above taking advantage of an opportunity, she lunged forward, planting a shoulder into his waist and driving him to the mat, “He gonna teach you how to fight?”

She grinned triumphantly even as she helped him to his feet.

“Very funny,” he said, “You ready to work now Lewis?”

Near lunchtime, she heard the door open and caught the sight of Bucky walking into the gym. Natasha may not be ready to trust him, but he had apparently convinced everyone that he wasn’t an immediate threat if he was free to walk around.

The Captain took advantage of her momentary distraction to disarm her and throw her to the mat.

“Where’s your focus,” he said as she got to her feet and he handed her back the unloaded pistol they were working with, “Again.”

She heard an amused sort of huff from behind her, but steeled her focus and drew her gun on the Captain again.

About ten minutes later, he called a break for lunch, and Bucky walked over to join them.

“You always this much of a hard ass Steve?” he asked.

Darcy grinned. “I like him,” she said, “He can stay.”

Bucky looked at her with a sort of odd expression on his face. “James Barnes,” he said extending his hand, “or Bucky, if you like.”

She took it, tensed for another flash of memory, but getting nothing. “Darcy Lewis,” she said easily. “Thanks for the way out the other day.”

“Anytime,” he grinned at her, and it completely altered his otherwise somewhat dangerous looking face. “And here’s a lesson for free,” he went on, “Stevie here only gets this wound up when he’s nervous, so don’t let him push you around.”

The Captain cut a betrayed sort of look at Barnes, but it was undercut by the exasperated fondness in his eyes.

“Stevie?” she asked gleefully.

“Come on punk,” the Captain said grumpily to his friend, “We’re going to lunch somewhere very far away from here.”

+

+

After they discovered the connection between Preston and Hydra, the analysts began unlocking the clues on Darcy’s skin one after the other.

Preston eventually led to what was ostensibly a small research outpost in Novosibersk, but was getting the kind of funding that major universities could only dream of.

A brief recon mission to a supplier of the outpost told them that, unfortunately, the place was guarded by the only security system that had ever bested Natasha Romanov.

Thankfully, also contained within Darcy’s tattoos was the location of the CEO of the security company’s home address.

“How does this help us?” Darcy asked, very unclear as to why the analysts seemed so excited about this, “Won’t it just be protected by the same system?”

“No,” said Natasha, “the system we’re talking about would be absolutely intolerable for a home. It’d take ten minutes to move through the checkpoints between the kitchen and the bathroom. The system is built around live verification security at every point of possible weakness, which means windows, corners vents…”

“Ahhh,” said Darcy, “Right. So this is a good thing then. And we think the trick to disabling the system is gonna be in there somewhere?”

“Has to be,” Hill said, “We did recon on this system when Natasha tried to break into it before. You can’t exactly give people in the facility a code to turn it off, and even in the best systems you have to plan for malfunctions, people who forget a checkpoint, things like that. Everyone who buys it is told that the only way they can get an override is to meet the CEO in person. So he’s got the overrides, and we checked everywhere else last time. We couldn’t find his home.”

“Right,” she was starting to get on board with the feeling of excitement and progress in the room. “So what’s the plan?”

“I think we should bring in Barnes,” said Natasha suddenly.

“Romanov,” began Hill, “are you sure that’s…”

“He can be trusted,” said Steve, “and I can keep an eye out.”

“But why do we need to introduce the risk?” asked Hill.

“Because from what he’s told us, he’s been working to tear down Hydra ever since he realized exactly what they had done to him. And he also spent years inside their systems. Three guesses to who’s high tech security is guarding the house,” said Natasha, “and who wants to place bets on whether Barnes has already beat the same system.”

Hill looked at both her and Steve steadily for a minute.

“Fair point,” she said. “Rogers, I get that you’re confident in having Barnes back you up, but are you confident having him back up Lewis? Because you know you’ve got to take her in with you.”

The Captain looked at her for a moment with an unreadable expression, and then turned back to Hill. “I trust him,” he said.

“With her life?” asked Natasha, nodding towards Darcy, “Because it’s your call, but that’s the call you’re making.”

“Yes,” he said steadily, “with her life.”

+

+

They had some time while the analysts were planning the operation, and they took it to get to know each other as a team. This was the most involved operation that Darcy had ever been part of, or at least that she remembered, and it was important that they worked well together.

Darcy knew at once that her initial flash of recall when she had met Bucky wasn’t off base at all the very first time they stood across the mat from each other to spar.

It was work, accessing her subconscious and pulling it forward to conscious thought, when she sparred with Natasha or Steve. She was just that much slower and clumsier for the delay.

But sparring with Bucky felt like _flying_. She _knew_ him, knew how he fought in a way that was immediately apparent to both Natasha and the Captain who looked at them, stunned, when they stepped apart.

Darcy was looking at Bucky with a searching gaze, but he kept his face carefully blank.

“Having a good day,” she said stiffly, clearly not satisfying Natasha and the Cap, but they let it slide for the moment as she walked out of the gym, because they were busy staring wide eyed at Barnes.

The sense of dizzy surrealism was as strong as it had been the moment she woke up in Belarus. She found herself slumped to the floor, clutching her head in her hands and breathing heavily when the Captain found her.

“Lewis,” he said, crouching down beside her, and then “Darcy? Are you alright.”

“Nope,” she said simply into her hands.

She didn’t think he knew what to do with that, because he was silent for a moment.

“Alright,” he said eventually, “that was a dumb question. Bucky wants to talk to you, if you’re ready.”

She looked up at him, the concern on his face was clear and somehow very encouraging.

“About what, did he say anything…?” she asked shakily.

“No,” he said, offering her a hand, “he won’t say a thing without you there. And I for one am pretty keen to know exactly what he hasn’t been telling you.”

He led her to a small conference room where Bucky and Natasha were waiting. Natasha was looking at Bucky like she wished she had a gun trained on him.

They both looked sharply to the door when Steve and Darcy walked in, closing the door behind them.

“You’re sure no one is recording?” he asked Natasha.

She nodded.

“You wanna start talking, Buck?” Steve asked in a tense and wary tone, keeping himself carefully placed between him and Darcy. Although, to be fair, she couldn’t be exactly sure who he thought he was protecting.

“I do,” he said, looking over Steve’s shoulder at Darcy, tense anxiety in his eyes, “I just don’t want to hurt her.”

“I’m not a child Barnes,” she cut at him, “I can handle it.”

“No, not…” he let out a frustrated sigh, “I mean physically.”

They all looked at him in surprise.

“How much do you know about what they did to her?” he asked.

“We know she’s not a sleeper,” said Nat, looking a little less ready to shoot, “and we know they did something to perception and memory centers, but not why.”

“They did something alright,” he said, sitting at the table wearily. “Tell me if I’m off base here,” he said, directing his words to Darcy, “you remember things you shouldn’t have been able to hear, shouldn’t have been able to see, perfect recall.”

Steve and Natasha both turned to look at her, giving Bucky the answer to his question even without Darcy’s nod.

“Any headaches?” he asked anxiously, “Nose bleeds? Especially any time you remembered something?”

“No,” she said, alarmed, “Is that something that’s going to happen?”

He let out a breath and his shoulders relaxed an inch, “I hope not kid,” he said with a wan smile, “but it’s what used to happen. It’s why I wiped you.”


	6. Almost Any How

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a warning, this chapter contains some pretty violent violence in the first little bit. If that sort of stuff is not your jam, I'd scroll down a little bit.

He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how

  * Friedrich Nietzsche



 

He was standing guard duty when they brought her in, just shaking off whatever she had been dosed with during transport, kicking and screaming like a hellcat.

They made him hold her down while they injected her again.

“Awfully difficult for a civilian,” the man holding the now empty syringe said, irritated, “Assign the Soldier to this lab for all scheduled treatments. We don’t want her damaged before we’re ready to release her.”

“You’re releasing her?” one of the men in a white coat asked.

“Eventually,” said the man with the syringe, “She works for Dr. Foster.”

“She has nothing to tell us now?” asked the white coat man.

“She’s a political science major,” the man with the syringe sneered, “she never even graduated.”

“So why all this effort?”

“Foster is untouchable. This girl is the only weak link we’ve got.”

“So she’s on ice until the enhancement program is ready?”

The man with the syringe nodded.

They made him stay and watch while she was strapped into the machine, the currents making her scream and twist even against the drugs in her system, not clearing her head but simply preparing her for the cold.

They made him stay as they dragged her limp form to a box, right beside his own.

They made him stay until her pale face, eyes wide in terror, flashed blue-cold through the window.

It wasn’t right, he thought. He didn’t know why. But it wasn’t right.

+

+

He had been awake for a long time, long enough to see winter turn to spring.

It was quiet. There had been two separate security threats, easily dispatched, but whatever he was guarding here must be very important. It wasn’t what he was usually asked to do.

At least, he didn’t think so.

Things got clearer the longer he was allowed to think, but what had come before this was still hazy and uncertain.

It was coming on to summer when he saw her again, shaky and soaked, just out of the box.

They made him watch.

They made him watch as they strapped her to the machine again and again.

He didn’t know what they were doing, but it wasn’t what they did to him, when they cleared his mind. It was excruciating, but short.

This was long and repeated and she wouldn’t stop screaming.

It wasn’t right.

+

+

She was looking at him, straight in the eyes while the men in white coats were staring at their computers.

“Please” he could see her mouthing to him. “Please.”

It wasn’t right.

His arm twitched at his side.

The men in the white coat turned back to the machine.

“Stop,” he heard himself say.

The men in white coats turned to look at him sharply.

“The Soldier can talk?” one of them said, “I didn’t know that.”

“What did you say Soldier?” the man who had held the syringe stepped towards him from where he had been standing. He could hear the warning tone in his voice. He should obey. He should.

“It’s not right,” he said instead, “It’s not right.”

“Clear her out,” said the man with the syringe tightly, “Right now.”

He watched, maybe they were going to leave her alone, but he could see they were just taking her back towards the box.

“Sit down Soldier,” said the man, pointing at the machine.

He paused, for only a moment, but he couldn’t resist the command, lying back into the machine, biting down on the mouth guard.

It wasn’t right. She is just a girl. It’s not right.

+

+

When he walked away from the Potomac, what he felt most was confusion.

The man on the bridge, his mission, Steve…

He tried, he went to the museum, he thought about finding him. But it was too much to think about.

It was also only the end of a very long list of questions.

He scrambled for anything that felt like clarity, even as he melted out of the city and put some distance between himself and anyone who might be looking for him.

He was travelling, long slow trains and cargo ships, using the time to sift backwards through what he could remember.

Somewhere in northern Germany, the memory struck him like a bolt of lightning. The girl, pale face and dark hair, screaming and screaming.

It was as good a goal as any - better than most - and he set off immediately for the facility at Khanovey. He knew going in that it wasn’t going to be as well guarded as it had been when he was there. For one thing, he wasn’t there guarding it. He knew the security system inside and out, he knew rotations and timetables.

Slipping in between guard rotations was easy. He couldn’t know, before he got there, if she was still there, still alive, even. But it was worth a try, and he was going to burn this place to the ground no matter what.

Security protocols had apparently really fallen off since he left. They hadn’t even changed the codes to the weapons locker. Ten minutes later, he had planted a series of charges around the base, the detonator in his pocket.

Once he started looking, he found her quickly, locked in a clean white cell, right next to the clean white cell where he used to sleep.

She looked tiny, huddled on a corner of a bare mattress, long hair tangled around her face, clutching the thin white gown she was wearing over her knees.

“Hey,” he hissed through the barred opening in the door.

Her eyes flew open at once, wide and scared, and she looked towards the door sharply.

He waited while she got to her feet, looking confused, and then all at once a dawning realization.

“You!” she exclaimed softly, “They said you were dead.”

“I’m not dead,” he whispered, “I got out. And I’m getting you out.”

She didn’t need to be told twice. She stood back as he tore through the lock on the door with his left hand, and then took it without hesitation as he offered; pulling her behind him as he carefully guided them towards the exit.

When they were clear, he turned back to her.

“Can you run?” he asked.

“Yes,” she said staunchly.

“Alright, to the top of that ridge, let’s go.” She followed him, and he kept his place slow as he could hear her struggling beside him, but the minute they crossed the ridge and could drop out of sight of the base, he stopped her.

“Take this,” he said, giving her his jacket, her lips already trembling as she shivered in the thin gown and nothing more than sandals.

He pulled out the detonator.

“What’s that?” she asked.

“Detonator,” he said, “I’m gonna blow that place sky high.”

“Can…” she asked hesitantly, “can I do it.”

He grinned, it wasn’t a particularly pleasant grin, but she didn’t seem to mind as he passed her the detonator.

She held it for a moment, then she looked back to the building in the valley.

“FUCK YOU,” she hollered, and then she pressed the button.

She looked wild in the light of the explosion, her hair blowing in the chill wind and her eyes wide, refusing to look away.

He began to think that perhaps he hadn’t rescued someone quite as helpless as he had assumed.

They both watched the smoldering ruins for several minutes, until her shivering drew him away from the moment.

“Come on,” he said, “I’ve got a truck a little way back in the woods.”

She turned to him and nodded.

He reached out towards her without thinking, and she winced away from him.

“Sorry,” he said immediately, “It’s just…your feet. A twenty minute walk in the snow is just asking for frostbite.”

She looked at him cautiously for a moment, but he could see fatigue and fear setting in, and she nodded, letting him approach carefully to pick her up.

He carried her carefully, because he could see the way her legs were bruised and the way she sucked in sharp gasps of air every so often.

They were both quiet as he carefully set her down on the passenger seat of the truck and he began to drive. He didn’t know what to say to her, now that he had done it. She didn’t seem particularly eager to talk as she huddled under his jacket.

He figured they were okay to hole up for a few days in the nearest town. He had read what had been leaked about SHIELD and Hydra, and the nearest base was a smoldering ruin. Anyone who might care had bigger fish to fry right now.

He paid cash for a hotel room and located her a pair of pants before leading her in through a back door, careful to keep her out of sight.

He did nothing more than sit by the door, watching her sleep, for a long time. Thinking about his next step, their next step.

She woke up with a start in the early hours of the morning.

“You’re alright,” he said immediately, because he knew what it felt like, waking up those first few times, not sure if he just came out of the box.

She looked at him in bewilderment for a moment, and then her shoulders relaxed.

“What’s your name?” he asked finally, “They never told me.”

“Darcy…” she said slowly, “Darcy Lewis. What’s yours?”

For a moment, he didn’t know what to tell her, and then it just came out, feeling real for the first time in a very long time. “James Buchannan Barnes,” he said, “Or Bucky, if you like.”

“Bucky?” she said, “Like, Howling Commandos, Captain America Bucky?”

It was his turn to be astonished, “You know him, the Captain?”

“No,” she said at once, “Not really, I mean. I know some of his friends.”

She paused.

“What happened to you?” she asked, “You…you died a long time ago.”

“Hydra,” he said, “I didn’t die…they…I don’t remember. That’s what the machine did to me. They took everything away and put back lies.”

“I’m sorry,” she said, and it didn’t feel like pity from her, just understanding. “How did you get out?”

“After they took me away, from where you were, they sent me to DC. I saw him, the Captain…Steve…I _remembered_ him. And then I just…I left. I think he’s looking for me, but I left.” He could hear himself sounding confused and disjointed, but that is the place that the target, the Captain, _Steve_ lived in in his head.

“And then you came to get me?” she asked.

“And then I came to get you,” he responded evenly.

“Why?” something deep down, buried under the layers of abuse, turned over. And he remembered a small, blonde haired man who stood up for what he believed in but was constantly surprised that anyone would stand up for him.

“It wasn’t right,” he held her gaze, steady as he knew how. It was important to him that she believed what he was saying.

“Oh. Well…thank you,” she looked a little stunned.

“You’re welcome.”

They sat in silence, the noise of the city passing them by outside.

“I can’t…I can’t go back, not yet.” He said at length, “I’m not…I’m not myself,” he smiled weakly. “But I can get you home, back to your people.”

“I can’t,” she said at once, anguish clear in her voice, “I can’t go back.”

“Why?” he sat up a little straighter.

“Because we have to be in Moscow tomorrow,” she said, hard certainty in her tone.

“What?” he was genuinely thrown.

“Your former employers have some very serious lapses in judgment in their ranks.” The hint of a calculating smile crossed the corner of her mouth.

“What do you mean.” He asked warily.

“What they did to me…they didn’t take my memories, they…I don’t know what they did really, but I can hear things, remember things that I shouldn’t be able to. I can remember that day, in the machine, when you told them to stop. Your shirt had a small hole in it on the left hand side, right above your elbow. I can remember exactly the gun you were carrying. I can hear your voice, as clear as I do now. They made me…they made me different.” He could hear the thrill of panic, even as she recited her impossible memories evenly.

“What does that have to do with Moscow?” he looked at her searchingly.

“Well, I don’t think that they knew how powerful it was, whatever they did to me, because they gave me these skills, to see and hear and remember, and they still _talked_ around me. I could hear them, in the hallway or in the room next door, or when I was half conscious and screaming. I could _hear_ them. And I remember. Not always, not everything. But, for example. When I saw the road sign for Moscow when we were driving, I remembered.” The panic was still there, but also something like purpose. He knew exactly how powerful it could be when you were trying to put your life back together.

“A very serious lapse in judgment.” A slow grin was crossing his face as he realized what this could mean, “And you want to use it?”

“If I went home, they’d lock me in a hospital and they’d never listen to me in time, if they listened to me at all. But if we go to Moscow, we can interrupt a meeting of three Hydra generals.” Her voice was driving, electric energy making her restless.

“You want to make them pay.” He said, feeling a rush of perfect synchronicity with the scared young woman in front of him.

“I want to burn them to the ground.” Still, sure, and certain. Any qualms he may have had about letting her do this, about dropping her off on her friends doorstep and never looking back, vanished.

“What else do you know?” he leaned forward, elbows on his knees, her electric energy spilling over to him.

“There’s a lot…it sort of swims around until I can attach it to something. I need to know more about Hydra, to know what I know.” She was looking to him for direction. The sure knowledge that he could give that to her settling a few more pieces of his frayed personality into place.

“If you want to do this, really do this, we can go to Moscow but after that, you need to give me some time.” The tone of command in his voice felt comfortable.

“For what?”

“I will tell you everything I know, we’ll see what you have locked up in your head. But you’re going to need some training if you’re going to be going in at my back.” He said, his tone serious, but he was not surprised at the grin that crossed her face like lightening.

“Deal.”

+

+

It didn’t take much to steal them some non-descript clothes and another vehicle. He brought her with him, patiently explaining why he chose the targets he chose, which cars were the easiest to hotwire. On the side of a quiet road, he made her practice again and again the process of splicing and sparking the right wires to start the engine.

And then they were gone.

He wondered, as they drove, if whoever he had been before would have had more qualms about this, about pulling her into this life.

Whoever he was now, though, knew that there was no going back for her.

The closer they got to Moscow, the more details came back to Darcy, so that it didn’t take them long, driving a carefully randomized pattern through the streets, until she sucked in a sharp breath and pointed at one of the stone row houses.

The drove past it, pulling over a few streets up.

“So what now,” she asked nervously, “Do we go in?”

He raised an eyebrow at her “And do what? Get ourselves killed? I don’t have the resources on hand to break into that place, I don’t know it like I did the lab.”

“So…we’re just here to watch these assholes meet?” she cut out at him, clearly frustrated.

“No, of course not,” he said patiently, “Give me the list of names again?”

Darcy repeated the names she had heard.

“Recognizable to whatever is left of SHIELD and undoubtedly CIA, FBI, KGB and any number of other organizations,” he said as if it were the answer she was looking for.

Darcy looked at him blankly.

“We’re going to call in an anonymous tip and then start a fire, the sort that draws news cameras.” He said, only slightly smug.

“Oh,” said Darcy, a grin spreading across her face, “Yeah, that’ll work. So who do we call the tip in to?”

“Local authorities,” he said, “so long as we throw in a watch word or two it’ll get tagged by _everyone_.”

“You’re, like, really good at this.” She sounded impressed and rather unflatteringly surprised.

He raised an eyebrow at her.

They found themselves a spot to watch as Bucky set off the homemade incendiary charges he had cobbled together with some stolen chemicals, a battery and a cell phone.

Bucky made the call, “I heard someone yelling at another guy, I think he called him Gregarin? And then the whole place started going up.”

It was only seconds before they heard sirens in the distance.

Darcy was watching through binoculars when the first man exited the building. She dropped them, crying out and clutching her head as information burst upwards like a geyser.

“Lewis?” Bucky was gripping her arm. “Darcy, hey, What’s happening.”

She shook her head, breathing hard, the pain slowly easing off as the rush slowed.

She looked at him. “Boy have we got a lot of work to do…”

+

+

It took them almost two weeks, travelling in zigs and zags, Barnes explaining how to travel on a train without leaving a money trail, how to avoid attracting attention in a crowd, how to avoid ending up on any security footage. Along the way they obtained a pack here, some supplies there, a change of clothes, a frightening array of weapons.

Finally, after a hike up into the hills that left Darcy sweaty and breathless, but didn’t seem to affect him at all, they ended up at a cabin near a high mountain lake.

“Rich man’s retreat,” he told her, as they opened the door to the surprising well-appointed home.

“How do you know he won’t come by?” she asked cautiously as she looked around.

“He’s dead” was his simple response.

“Oh,” she said shortly, “did he deserve it?”

“Yes.”

“Alright then,”

He let her rest that night, after settling into the small bedroom right behind the potbellied stove in the main room, him taking the larger but colder room off the kitchen.

However, by the time their first week was out, she wasn‘t willing to attribute any kind emotions to the man.

“How,” she huffed as he bullied her through what had become the painful morning ritual of running three miles up a steep mountain path, “will any of this help me if I actually die.”

“You’re not going to die,” he said, and he could almost hear his eyes roll, “but you are going to be in a lot of pain for a while.”

“Slavedriver,” she huffed.

“Wimp,” he cut back over his shoulder with a grin, “now pick up the pace.”

+

+

She enjoyed learning how to fire a gun far more than all the running and punching she was doing. Learning to fight from someone as skilled as the Winter Soldier was an exercise in failing a lot.

Shooting, though, she actually felt successful at. She had good eyesight, good hand eye coordination and an instinct for finding a target.

It didn’t take long before she was regularly shooting bullseyes on a fixed target and not long after that that she could reliably shoot frisbees out of the sky.

+

+

In the evenings, they planned.

He started at the beginning, telling her everything he knew, everything he could remember about Hydra.

It was a troubling contrast, the flat emotionless way he narrated the horror of the last few years of his experience, which seemed to span many decades in real time.

More troubling was the memories triggered.

The more he talked about, the more she remembered. Although, remembering was too kind of a term. It was like being bombed out and attacked by memories she shouldn’t have, conversations through closed doors, one sided phone calls, slamming into her like bullets.

“Darcy,” his voice broke through the comfortable stillness in the main room of the cabin. To an outside observer, it might have looked like a very casual scene, two people comfortably dressed, sitting in front of a fire with their books.

Darcy put down the security system instructional manual she was working through in her rudimentary Russian, a dictionary tucked beside her.

The months that they had been living in each other’s pocket had not always been easy or smooth, but it had taught her to read his tone reasonably well.

She sighed, “Are we really going to do this again Barnes?”

“Yes,” he said looking at her levelly. “Hearing what I knew about Gregarin’s operations caused you to see double for nearly an hour today.”

They fought about this, all the time. He wanted to stop, to find some way to block out the memories, but she wanted to press on. It was painful. The headaches and the nosebleeds were getting worse, but what they were learning…

The small scientific outpost she had been at was important, she knew that much. Very important people visited regularly, and seemed to enjoy bragging about their accomplishments.

They were building a large and frightening picture in pins in a map on a wall, in articles found online and printed out, in scribbled notes and bad sketches.

The rotten tentacles of Hydra had reached far deeper than either of them had ever feared.

“You know that it’s worth it,” she said tiredly, “for what we’re learning.”

“And if it kills you?” he said stiffly, “what then?”

“Well then you will have learned all I was able to tell you,” she said staunchly.

“Unacceptable,” he cut back, sitting up straight and tense.

She blinked at him. Usually a comment like that would mean the end of the conversation. She thought that he was constantly unsure that she was committed, that she might be liable to go running off with all of his information if it got too hard.

She usually rather uncharitably thought maybe he could go a little easier on the physical drills if he wanted her to stick around.

But this, this was something different.

“James?” she asked carefully, swinging her feet to the ground and looking at him intently.

“Your death is an unacceptable outcome,” he said, looking somewhere over her shoulder.

She felt deeply uncomfortable. In some ways, she was closer to this man than she ever had been to anyone else, but it had always been unspoken.

“You’re not about to make things weird are you?” she half joked at him.

He rolled his eyes at her, a familiar response that allowed her nerves to calm. “Don’t flatter yourself Lewis,” he said.

“Well I am the only woman for hundreds of miles,” she teased.

“And yet, I’ve managed to control myself,” he drawled, and then shook his head. “Don’t change the subject.”

It had been a valiant effort, but he was clearly determined to say something.

“I won’t,” he started and stopped again, obviously choosing his words carefully. “There’s only two people in the whole world I ever remember trusting. Hydra’s already taken one of them from me, and I won’t let them take you too.”

They looked at each other in stillness for a long time.

And without even considering her actions, she strode across the small room, pulled him up from his chair, and threw her arms around him.

They held each other like that for a long moment. They had grown physically comfortable with each other over the months they had spent here, sparring and training, but this was the first time since he had rescued her from Khanovey that they had touched out of kindness, or affection.

“Who’s making things weird now?” he spoke low in her ear, and she smiled at the humor in his voice.

“Shut up Barnes, if I was going to jump you I would have done it already.” She could feel him shake with laughter against her.

“You know,” she said as she pulled away, “that I’m committed to this, right? As much as I may complain about you being a hard ass, I know that this is the right thing to do.”

“I know,” he said, a sadness lingering under his words, “I suppose I’m just doomed to spend my life with the self-sacrificing hero types.”

“Well,” she said, giving his shoulders a squeeze before dropping her arms, “takes one to know one.”

+

+

And then one day, he decided she was ready.

They started small, splinter cells of four or five agents.

They fought about that, too. They fought about how he would never let her pull a fatal trigger on any of their marks, always doing it himself, or taking them out with an impersonal explosion.

They fought about appropriate cover stories, and what new information that Darcy gained at each location meant, and how much she could handle learning in a day.

But she also grew to know him better than she had known anyone in her life before this.

It was unlike any kind of friendship that Darcy had ever had before. He was harsh with her, the training never stopped, but he also expected a lot of her, knew better than her that she could handle more than she thought.

He ran rigid missions, expected perfect obedience when he was calling the shots, but he also held her, silent and solid, the night after she first had to shoot a man and watch him die.

She thought that if she had ever had a brother, she would want him to be like James Barnes.

+

+

“So then Jane is like ‘after she tazed him’ thinking I would be embarrassed or something,” she said gleefully, her feet kicked up over the arm of the ratty couch in the attic apartment they were holed up in. They had some time to kill before the next time they knew where to find their targets. It happened sometimes, maybe three or four times since they had started this mission more than a year ago. They were learning to enjoy the down time.

James snorted, “Has she _met_ you?” he asked, his voice half muffled as he lay sprawled out face down on the bed.

“We were still getting to know each other,” Darcy conceded, “but anyways, that’s how I ended up tazing the god of thunder.”

“You know,” James said, flipping on to his back, “you’d think with all the weird shit I’ve seen that wouldn’t be so hard to believe but… Thor?”

“It’s a whole different level of weird,” Darcy agreed.

“Still not as weird as the first time I saw Steve after whatever happened to him,” he said.

Darcy stilled. Things were stable, even good some times. She felt strong, she felt purposeful. Both she and James were getting better. Sleeping more soundly, laughing more often.

And along with it came memories that had nothing to do with Hydra. He had started telling her about a slight blond man with a heart far too big for his size, and the fight of an alley cat. But it was still a rare occasion, and she knew enough to let him talk when the mood struck him.

“Zola had me, I was already half way to…to this,” he stumbled.

“Hey,” Darcy cut in firmly, “you’re not the Soldier any more. Don’t make me come over there and beat some sense into you.”

He held his hands up in surrender, something halfway to a smile on his face.

“The point is, I thought I was done, you know? And then this little punk from Brooklyn is standing in front of me at about three times his usual size, and then this guy pulls his damn face off. I was pretty convinced that I was hallucinating until about halfway through the walk back to base.”

“Some guy took his _face_ off?” Darcy asked, “and a little bit of muscle was what threw you?”

“You imagine running into someone you’ve been looking out for your whole life who’s suddenly this giant…hero…thing.” James spluttered.

“Giant hero thing?” Darcy raised an eyebrow in his direction, “that his official tagline? Or just a sweet pet name?”

“Just because _your_ mind is always in the gutter Lewis…” he was cut off by a couch cushion flying with deadly accuracy and not a small amount of force at his head.

+

+

But things couldn’t go on this way forever, the more they did, the more Hydra agents they took down, the larger the facilities they took on, the more attention they attracted. And the more they learned, the worse it got for Darcy.

“So what’s our way in?” Darcy asked, looking across from their hotel room at the building down the street they were casing. “Some of Gregarin’s people are working there, I could put on a little black dress and drop the boss’s name?”

James shook his head, “After we let that last shipment go, I’m not sure you’ll be welcome. It’s too much of a risk. Plus,” he went on with a smug grin on his face, “Yuri is there. He’s definitely not going to be happy to see you.”

“Asshole should have thought about that before he let his hands wander,” she responded, a startlingly similar grin on her face. “But you’re right,” she continued, “B&E it is.”

“Hardly the worst crime we’ve committed this week,” James dropped his binoculars.

They waited until after dark. There were still plenty of people walking around the streets of Paris, so it was easy to blend in and slip behind the building. A few carefully cut wires and a hand held blow torch later and they were in.

“Why do they always have spooky underground lairs,” Darcy whispered as they crept along in the dark.

“Hides the heat signatures,” he whispered back, “and apparently adds to the style of the thing.”

“Obviously the most important…” he cut her off with his hand on her arm and they both heard movement up the corridor. They pressed themselves into an alcove as two men, one in black fatigues and one wearing a lab coat, passed.

They were talking quietly, but James caught the edge of the conversation. He thought he heard something about Valhalla, but that couldn’t be right.

And then all of a sudden he felt Darcy clench beside him, a stiff hiss of air escaping as she fought to stay quiet and still. He threw a hand over her mouth, his other arm around her shoulder until the two men were out of range.

“Darcy,” he whispered tensely, “What…”

“Down the hall,” she whispered, pain clear in her voice as she wiped away a trickle of blood, “quickly.”

They found what they were looking for three doors down: the server room.

James set to work finding the correct drive and copying it at once.

He didn’t notice what she was doing until it was too late.

“Darcy, don’t!” Bucky cut out, but she had already sat down at the terminal and started scrolling through data.

He had to physically pull her away as she started violently seizing and she was half insensible as he dragged her out of the building and set charges.

“Darcy, hey, Darce, come on kid…” he spoke to her anxiously as she stood, supported against the brick wall of an alley.

“M’alright,” she mumbled, wiping at the trickle of blood seeping out of her nose.

“You’re not alright,” his eyes were wide and searching, “That was really stupid.”

She couldn’t quite get out a witty remark as she suddenly found herself busy vomiting copiously.

“Okay, fine” she said a moment later, “I’m not alright, but none of that matters now.”

“You found something?” he asked.

“Something huge.”

+

+

“Jesus,” they were two cities gone, hiding out in an empty country cottage. Darcy was lying prone and still on the couch, a bag of ice held to her head. James was looking at her in blank shock

“Yeah,” she said dully.

“That’s…Jesus,” he simply couldn’t find the words.

“Uh huh,” she agreed

“That’s…we can’t deal with that,” he sounded defeated.

“No kidding,” she winced as she tried to roll her eyes at him.

“I….I should turn myself in…I could….I could do it,” he could feel himself tensing even as he said it.

“James…” her tone was weary.

“I can do it…I should…” he tried.

“Barnes, by the time we put something together, we’re going to have a matter of days to get this thing started. Gregarin is the first domino that has to fall and after the 15th we’ll have no idea where to find him. You think they are going to start listening to you in a matter of days?” she said.

“…No…You’re right,” he admitted, knowing exactly where this was going.

“And there’s so much more…there’s no point in even trying to explain all the details that are…” she waved her fingers over her forehead in a wordless explanation, “I don’t even know how they all fit yet. There’s no way I can give you all that I know.”

He let out a sigh, “I know that.”

“So it has to be me.”

There was finality in her tone, “You’re getting worse Darcy,” he said.

“I’ve got an idea about that,” she said hesitantly.

He looked up at her sharply, taking in the frightened but determined look on her face. “I’m not going to like it am I.”

“Oh you’re going to hate it.”

+

+

They had been over this, again and again, for hours.

She was right, he did hate her plan. But he also knew it was the only one that made any sense, the only way to both help her and complete the mission at the same time.

“Look,” he finally said wearily, “even IF, and that’s a really big IF kid, if we do this, how are you even going to be of any help to them?”

“I have an idea about that too,” she said.

“Let me guess,” he began resignedly.

“Oh, you’re going to hate it.”

+

+

“That’s the last of it,” he said, dropping the needle with a thud and letting his head fall into his hands as she wiped away ink and blood from her hip.

“What’s this one?” she asked, looking carefully at the line of text in his own hand he had just finished. “That wasn’t part of the design was it.”

He shook his head.

Leaning back in the chair.

“So you thought I needed more ink?” she asked acidly as she began to read, “Not marble, nor…” she trailed off. “Oh.” She finished quietly, swinging her legs off the table. “James…” she started.

He shook his head, unwilling to admit the tears stinging the corner of his eyes.

“You’re going to forget me,” he said. “I wanted something…I wanted you to know. Even if you never remember, you’ll know.”

“Thank you,” she said simply, reaching out to take his hand. “Even if…” she went on shakily, “Even if I don’t remember, I’ll learn it again. There’s never going to be any version of me that doesn’t need you as my friend. They’ll never take that from you. I promise.”

+

+

He left her fully seated on the bench, making sure her hood was tucked tightly around her face, and he waited.


	7. Progress

All progress is precarious, and the solution of one problem brings us face to face with another problem.

  * Martin Luther King Jr.



 

“That’s quite a story,” Steve said when Bucky finally drew to a stop.

“Darcy,” Natasha said, sharp concern in her tone, “are you alright?”

“Yeah…I’m…I just…it sounds…it’s just insane? How can I not remember any of that?” she looked up at Bucky searchingly.

“You really have nothing?” he asked stiffly.

“I…Nothing like memories,” she looked away, “When you gave me your jacket, the smell of it was…familiar. I feel like…I feel like I remember what it felt like to trust you.” A long silence drew out between the four of them.

“Listen,” said Natasha, “I think we all need some time to process this. We’ll re-group tomorrow morning and think about what Hill needs to know, alright?”

They nodded, but Darcy hung back as Natasha left with Steve following after her, looking back with a confusing expression.

“James,” she stopped him before he could leave.

“Yeah?” he asked warily.

“On my hip, from sonnet 55, that was just for me, wasn’t it?” it wasn’t really a question.

He softened, a little of the sadness around his eyes relaxing “Yeah, kid, that was for you.”

“Were we…I mean…it’s a love poem…” she could feel her cheeks heating and looked anywhere but at him.

He let out a short laugh that made her look up in surprise. “No,” he shook his head with a grin, “Nothing like that. It’s also a poem about endurance and memory.”

“Oh, thank god,” her shoulders dropped in relief.

“You’re really good for the ego there kid,” he said with a wry grin.

“Oh come on, we must have been friends, right?” she let the relief carry her forward, “You should know better than to expect coddling from me.”

“Yeah, I know,” the smile on his face faded a bit, “It’s just…it was just you and me for two years. And now …”

“I’m sorry…” she found she didn’t quite know what to say, the depth of anguish she was feeling in response to the sadness on his face was out of step with a man that, as far as she could recall, she had just met. “We can…we can rebuild it, can’t we?” and she found herself honestly hoping it was true, because it was clear to her that whatever had been built between them was _important_.

“Sure kid,” he said, not sounding entirely convinced.

She decided the best start was just to be herself, and not try to be anything else. “It’s just the thought of making out with you or anything has a certain…ick factor.”

The corner of his mouth turned up again, “So you don’t remember any of the good stuff, just that you don’t want to make out with me?”

“Apparently,” she smiled back at him.

“The universe is cruel,“ he intoned in mock seriousness, and then he looked at her with a calculating expression. “Do you want to make out with Steve?”

“What? Why would you…? No! God,” she spluttered, utterly thrown by the question in a way she was choosing not to examine.

He was laughing at her, his shoulders shaking with the attempt to repress it.

“Were you always this annoying?” she huffed.

“Oh yes,” he said jovially, “Come on kid, I’ll make you some tea just the way you like it.”

“You know that that kind of thing is going to creep me out for a while, don’t you?” she asked as she followed him out of the room.

“Oh yes.”

+

+

“She’s my asset,” said Steve stiffly. He, Natasha, Darcy and Bucky were in a meeting with Hill about the upcoming mission.

“She was, apparently, his asset for two years before she ever met you,” said Hill coolly.

“She doesn’t remember that,” Steve cut back.

“Hey,” said Darcy in exasperation, “ _She_ is sitting right here!”

They both looked over at her sheepishly, and Steve caught Bucky and Natasha hiding their grins.

“So?” Hill prompted.

“I don’t remember,” she said, with an apologetic glance at Bucky, “but we obviously work together well. He knows _me_ as an asset far better than the Captain does, even if I know the Captain better as a handler.”

“That’s a fair point,” said Hill, and Steve felt irritation rising up through him. “Do you know anything more that can help us Barnes?” she asked.

“I know Lewis,” he said immediately, “I trained her, I know what she can do. But the mission? No. I don’t know anything more than you know about the end goal. Darcy knew, I think. All I know is that it’s big, and the plot is incredibly far reaching. She didn’t tell me much. I just wrote down what she told me to, didn’t dig because digging into it was killing her.”

Steve looked at the clear concern on his friends face as he looked at Darcy. He wasn’t quite sure why it bothered him as much as it did. “And so we’re going to send her out there with you and risk the same kind of damage?”

Darcy rolled her eyes, crossing her arms and looking at him in exasperation. “Whatever James did, it worked.” She said firmly, “It doesn’t hurt, information comes slowly, not in a rush. If it starts hurting, I’ll tell you,” she said indignantly.

“No you won’t” said James, looking amused.

“Okay, no I won’t”, she conceded with a betrayed looking glance, “but I _will_ if it feels like a problem, okay?”

Steve looked back and forth between the startlingly similar stubborn expressions on Darcy and Bucky’s faces. He threw his hands up in defeat. “Fine,” he said, “But I’m still calling the mission,” he refused to acknowledge his petulant tone.

+

+

“How the hell did you manage this?” Bucky asked as they stared at the four embossed invitations that Natasha had just placed on the table.

“Pepper Potts,” she said simply.

“Is that a code name?” Bucky asked, and saw Darcy stifling a grin.

“Might as well be,” said Steve, “She’s the CEO of Stark Industries.”

“And perhaps more impressively, Tony Stark’s long suffering girlfriend,” Natasha added.

“Tony Stark is tied down?” Darcy blurted out in surprise.

They all turned to look at her.

“Sorry,” she said, “but I think the last time I remember hearing about him he was still throwing giant parties full of booze and whores.”

“Yeah,” Bucky grinned at her, “That’s definitely the worst part about losing three years of your memory, missing out on all the celebrity gossip.”

Darcy chucked a pen at him with unerring accuracy.

“Could we focus?” said Natasha with a tolerant grin, “the invitations mean we can go as party guests.”

“The analysts say they can get us civilian transport so our arrival can be followed and doesn’t look suspicious. They also say they can get a quin jet within a mile of the place without being picked up, so we’ll have a route out,” said Steve.

Bucky could see that Steve was watching him carefully. He did it every time he and Darcy interacted like this, hinting at what might have gone before. He and Steve were still relearning each other, so they hadn’t spoken about it, but Bucky had a pretty good idea of what was going on and it was probably about time to say something.

Darcy let out a long suffering sigh. “That means we’re going to have to be undercover for a whole day of travel, doesn’t it?”

“Yes Lewis, and as horrible as pretending to be nice to me on an airplane all day will be, I’m sure you’ll survive.” Steve’s tone was only ever so slightly hurt as he rolled his eyes at her. Bucky didn’t think Darcy noticed.

Natasha, of course, did.

“Actually,” she said, casting a conspiratorial glance sideways at him, “I think Barnes and Lewis should ride together this trip.”

Both Darcy and Steve looked over at her sharply.

“There’s no telling who might recognize her in there,” Natasha went on calmly, “particularly as she won’t recognize _them_ to avoid them.”

“And anyone that’s likely to recognize her is reasonably likely to expect to see me with her,” Bucky finished.

“Just like old times, hey?” said Darcy, agreeing easily.

“Not that you would know,” Bucky quipped back. They had developed a habit of joking about the past between them that he missed like a physical ache and she couldn’t remember. It was working well enough for them, but seemed to make Steve’s brows draw closer together.

He stopped Steve in the hallway after they had finished, plans as set as they could be.

“Hey,” he said, “you got a minute?”

Steve looked at him carefully, “Everything okay Buck?” he asked.

Bucky sighed. Steve’s constant worrying that he was going to fall apart or go postal or god knows what else was part of what was making it hard to establish any kind of new normal in their relationship.

“Dunno,” he said, sticking his hands in his pocket, “you really okay with me going in with Lewis?”

Steve let out a defeated breath. “Wanna go for a walk?”

They were well out into the woods, past the range of the audio scanners that were constantly recording close to the building, before he started talking.

“You know I trust you, right?” he started.

“As far as you should,” Bucky agreed, “and maybe a bit farther.”

“It’s just…things with Lewis are…complicated,” Steve faltered.

“Really? Because I thought she was simple,” Bucky said sarcastically.

Steve let out a grudging laugh.

“I feel…I feel responsible for her,” he finally said.

“And for me,” Bucky added simply. Steve had the good grace not to deny it.

“The two of you…even though she doesn’t remember, you have this…ease…like you understand her, and she understands you. And I feel like…Christ Bucky, you two are the ones that came back from the dead and I’m sitting here feeling like a fish out of water.”

“You two understand each other better than you think, if you ask me,” he said, hiding a bit of a grin at the plaintive tone in Steve’s voice.

“So what, we just don’t work well together?” Steve asked, sounding resigned.

Bucky let out an exasperated sigh.

“Will you quit feeling so sorry for yourself there Steve?” he cuffed him across the side of the head but without any real force.

“You’re right, it doesn’t really matter how well we get along personally if..”

Bucky cut him off.

“Are you really this dense?” he asked.

Steve looked at him blankly.

“I guess that answers that,” he said to himself under his breath, “you two are so alarmingly similar sometimes.”

“Similar?” Steve asked, honestly surprised.

“Think about how you both got to where you are,” said Bucky, “you were both faced with a choice, you both chose to make more of yourselves, and you both chose to use what you were given to put others first, every single time.”

“She didn’t chose this,” said Steve sharply, “that’s the problem.”

Bucky stopped. “Oh,” he said simply.

“What?” Steve pulled to a stop beside him.

“Oh, I just figured out why you two keep butting heads,” he said, and then he cuffed Steve again, not so gently.

“Hey!” said Steve, “what was that for?”

“She _chose_ this, you idiot. You treating her like she didn’t, like a victim, whether you realize it or not, whether _she_ realizes it or not, is probably the most insulting thing you could possible do to her.”

“Insulting? I…”

“You’re taking away her _choice_ from her Steve. And the choices she keeps making every single day. You’re taking away all the things that make her _special_.”

Steve blinked at him. “You really care about her, don’t you?” he said slowly.

“You’re damn right I do,” he said, “whether she remembers it or not.”

“That must be hard,” he said simply.

“It is.” Bucky agreed quietly, “so stop making it harder and let her make her own choices, yeah?”

“Yeah,” Steve agreed. “You got smart.” He said after a moment. “Apparently I’m the one that kept all the stupid.”

“Naw,” said Bucky, with a grin as they turned and headed back to the compound, “I’ve just been figuring out that woman for almost two years now. You’ll learn.”

“Hope so,” he said with an almost wistful grin as he fell silent.

Bucky knew that grin, even though he had only seen it on Steve’s face once before. He had to stop himself from laughing out loud.

Oh was this ever going to be fun to watch.

+

+

Sitting on a commercial flight with James Barnes was very much like being trapped with an excitable toddler, Darcy thought, as he shifted in his seat to look over her shoulder at what she was reading.

“Darling,” she said tightly, “if you do that one more time I swear I will turn this plane around.”

Travelling under cover with James as a couple felt surprisingly normal. He told her that they had done it before, plenty of times, all above board and no funny business.

It was odd, but there was something about it that felt…artificial. That in itself wasn’t odd, but going to a party with Steve had been…well, different.

It was a silly thing to dwell on. They were very different men. She shook it off as the announcement came on telling them they were about to land.

They were travelling separately, Steve and Natasha on an entirely different flight than them, staying at a different hotel.

It wasn’t until they arrived at the party that they caught sight of them, already inside.

“Cap, Widow,” Bucky’s lips barely moved as he spoke, the com picking up his slightest whisper, “we’ve got visual of you to our nine o’clock.”

She saw Natasha throw back her head as if laughing at something Steve had just said, “We’ve got you too,” her low voice came across the coms, “great dress Lethe.”

She thought she caught Steve’s eyes flicking towards her, but it was hard to tell at this distance.

“You got anything for us Lethe?” asked Steve.

She pulled James behind her to a bar in the far corner, leaning her back on the counter as he ordered them drinks so she could survey the room. All at once, she realized that there was an issue.

“Too much,” she said tightly.

“I’m calling for evac,” came Steve’s voice at once.

“Hold on,” James cut him off, “what’s the deal Lethe?” he was right beside her but she heard him more through her earpiece than in person.

‘Well, I can tell you that those two guys standing over by the south wall are not your average party security,” she said as steadily as she could, “And I can tell you that there are at least three other men here that I’ve run into at some point, probably connected to Gregarin. I don’t know if they can all ID me, but it’s a good bet at least one of them can.”

“Shit..” she heard James beside her as they walked away from the bar to find a dark corner, “At least two of the three likely can. We ran into them when we were running jobs for Gregarin, figuring out who all his suppliers were and cutting them off.”

“Can they ID you?” Natasha asked him.

“Unlikely,” he said, “Lethe ran point on those runs. Gregarin and his men found it…amusing.”

“Gross,” Darcy muttered.

“Well,” said Steve, “It’s a good bet that what we’re looking for is behind that door in the south wall. Can you get us behind it?”

“Yeah,” he said, looking across the room towards the panel beside the door. “I can give you a three minute window. That enough?”

“It’ll have to be,” said Natasha.

“We’ll have to turn off our coms,” he said, “I’m gonna blow the circuits of anything that’s up and running in here.”

“So…” said Steve dryly, “one of your more subtle plans then.” Darcy stifled a laugh.

“You’re on your own on this one,” said James, not rising to the bait, “we’ve got to keep Lethe’s head down and make it out with the panicking crowd. We’ll rendezvous on the west lawn and head for the evac, yeah?”

“Sounds like a plan,” said Steve, and across the room she saw him and Natasha subtly switch of their coms. She did the same, and the low buzz of transmission in her ear fell silent.

“So we’re stuck hanging out in a dark corner while they get all the fun?” she said petulantly as they watched Steve and Natasha move closer to the door.

“The way I see it,” said James, pulling a small device from his pocket, “we get a front row seat.” And then his eyes went wide with panic. “We got incoming, heading right towards us,” he said, and without prompting, turned her around, pressed her against the wall, and let his head fall beside hers as if they were locked in a passionate embrace.

She could hear his breath coming quickly, brushing across her shoulder as she turned her face into his neck, her eyes cutting sideways as a man who she knew she recognized, although she had no idea how, moved past them in the crowd.

His eyes rested on them for a moment, but there was no flash of recognition, just a disgusted roll of the eyes.

“He’s gone,” she said against his ear, “we’re clear.”

They both looked over towards Steve and Natasha, who were in position and clearly looking at them. Darcy could practically see Steve’s raised eyebrows from here. She rolled her eyes.

“Good to go?” she asked James.

“Ready,” he said, and he nodded almost imperceptibly for the benefit of the couple across the room.

And then, with a deafening crack, the entire place went pitch black. There was a momentary silence before shrieks of panic flew across the room and everyone started running for the door.

They hung towards the back of the crowd, but it didn’t take long before they saw Steve and Natasha making their way out of the building behind them. They let the crush of people moving outwards on the lawn carry them forward, separating them in the crowd.

He was much too far away to help her when she saw the same man from before, looking at her curiously. She frantically flicked her com on and whispered. “I need a hand here, someone’s looking way too long for comfort.”

“Right behind you,” she heard Steve’s voice in her ear only moments before she felt his hand on her back. They moved with the crowd still, but started edging sideways through the crush, away from their observer, but he was following them now.

She saw that Steve was guiding her towards a small building on the lawn, maybe a garden shed, so that it would come between them and their pursuer at least for a moment. Darcy wasn’t quite sure what good that would do, but Steve was moving with purpose so she assumed he had a plan.

As soon as they were behind it, he pulled off his coat, slipped it over her shoulders, and then slipped back into the crush of traffic.

She could see their pursuer scanning the crowd, having lost them momentarily, but it wouldn’t take long…

And then, all of a sudden, Steve had pressed her up against the side of the building they were just passing and he was _kissing_ her.

She hoped to god that _he_ could still see whether or not they had successfully avoided their pursuer’s attention, because she sure as hell couldn’t.

She, in fact, couldn’t see anything because without any conscious volition her eyelids had fluttered closed and all she could think about was the smooth press of his lips against hers…until they weren’t anymore.

‘Come on,” he said, pulling her forward abruptly, “we’re clear.” And she gracelessly stumbled along after him.

Once they cleared the crowd in the shadows of the west lawn, they started moving more quickly towards their evac. They could see Bucky and Natasha, two shadows, a few yards ahead of them.

She could feel Steve looking at her, but she resolutely held her gaze forward.

“Your face is red,” he said, concern clear in his voice, “are you okay?”

She looked up at him in honest surprise, “What? I mean, are you serious?”

He just blinked at her.

“Dude, you just _kissed_ me, in the middle of a daring escape! What the hell!?’ She could feel her cheeks heating even further.

Steve slowed his pace, looking at her in bewilderment, “But I…you just did the same thing with Barnes in there…and it worked didn’t it?”

Darcy spluttered inelegantly for a moment.

“James didn’t actually kiss me you moron,” she hissed, “he was pretending, because it is pretty hard to keep your sight lines open when you’re _sucking face_.”

“Oh,” said Steve, looking satisfyingly embarrassed.

“And you guys need to come up with some more original plans!” she huffed as she stalked away from him towards their evac point.

She thought she heard what sounded distinctly like muffled laughter over the coms.


	8. Infinite Dangers

The dangers of life are infinite, and among them is safety.

– **Goethe**

The mood in the briefing room was somewhat tense as Hill reviewed with them the information that had been obtained.

The long flight home, deliberately not speaking to Steve, certainly had not improved matters.

“Here’s the good news,” said Hill, bringing up a series of satellite photos on the view screen, “the information we obtained from your mission has not only given us what we need to break the security system, it has also helped us figure out more of the encoded information that Lewis carries with her.”

“And the bad news?” asked Natasha resignedly.

“The encoded information tells us that there are six different facilities out there, all protected by the same system, but only one of which houses our real target.”

Darcy let out a long sigh, “So I shouldn’t start planning my tropical vacation any time soon I suppose,” she muttered.

“Barnes,” Hill went on, “Can you shed any light on this? You were the one that tattooed this information weren’t you? What is this all leading to? What do you know about it?”

“Very little,” said Barnes, looking over at Darcy carefully, “I wasn’t much more than a scribe. I mean, the extent of Hydra’s reach, their connections, the fact that they were working on something big, I knew that. But the details? She wrote all this stuff down for me and told me it was better that I didn’t know details.”

“And you trusted her?” said Steve, a bit incredulously.

“Yeah,” said Bucky, with a raised eyebrow, “I did. Plus, you know, talking about the details was making her bleed from her tear ducts so I thought it would be rude to press.”

Steve looked appropriately chagrined, but Darcy was glaring.

“We also,” said Hill, steering the conversation away from the growing tension, “found this,” she pulled up an image of what looked like an organic molecule.

“Have you asked Jane about it?” Darcy said at once, something about the shape of it tugging at a half gone memory.

“Yes,” said Hill, looking at her curiously, “She said that it bears some structural relationship to some Asgardian biomechanics that she has seen. She can synthesize it, but she doesn’t know what it does.”

“We should do it,” said Darcy at once, “I know I wouldn’t have put that in there if we didn’t need it for something.”

“Lewis,” started Steve, “How do you know it isn’t something dangerous, something we should be looking into an antidote for, or…”

“Because I know how my mind works,” she cut back, no looking in his direction, “and I would have been more specific.”

“How, exactly,” said Steve in a careful tone, “do you know that.”

She whipped her head to look at him sharply.

“Can we generate a sample somewhere safe? See it it’s dangerous without putting anyone at immediate risk?” Natasha cut through the growing tension.

“That’s what Dr. Foster suggested,” said Hill wearily, “if you would just let me finish.”

“Fine,” said Steve tightly.

“And Captain,” Hill said with a sharp glance, “I’m going to recommend that you debrief your team members before we clear you for duty.”

“Recommend?” he asked with a raised eyebrow and a look of resignation.

“Dismissed,” was all Hill said in response.

+

+

Darcy’s plan of cool, professional silence lasted about three seconds into her scheduled debrief with the Captain in a small boardroom.

“Look,” he said as he sat down, looking studiously away from her, “There’s no need for you to be embarrassed, it was just a kiss, I’m sorry I didn’t ask your permission but it seemed like the best option at the time.”

“No need for _me_ to be embarrassed?” she half screeched at him, “I’m not _embarrassed_ Rogers, I’m pissed!”

He looked gratifyingly stunned at that.

“And I’m going to continue _being_ pissed until you treat me like a competent asset who you yourself have been beating into the ground with training for _weeks_ instead of a half trained civilian without an ounce of sense who needs to be rescued with weak ideas pulled from over dramatic spy thrillers.”

She refused to look away as his expression grew at first shocked and then resigned.

“You know,” he said with a sigh, rubbing the bridge of his nose, “Bucky said something pretty similar…although he was nicer about it.”

She couldn’t help the snort of laughter that escaped her “That’s got to be a first,” she said, acknowledging that he was trying to get through this without unnecessary conflict.

“I do respect you as an asset Lewis, and I’m sorry I ever let you think otherwise.”

She nodded slowly.

“It’s just…there’s so many unknown dangers for you out there. I can’t plan or prepare for it like I normally can for anyone on my team. Makes me a bit antsy.”

“You think it doesn’t freak me out?” she asked coolly.

“I can’t even imagine,” he said sincerely, “and I don’t understand how you can be handling all this so calmly.”

Darcy looked at him curiously. “Did you know me, know who I was…before all this?”

“Yeah, a little,” he conceded, “Thor talked about you a lot, and I’ve read your file.”

She let out a resigned sigh, “You keep expecting me to react like her,” she said, “I don’t blame you. _I_ keep expecting me to react like her too, I mean, that’s all I remember being. But I’m clearly _not_ her anymore.”

“No,” he said stiffly, “you aren’t.”

“So maybe, and this is me, reaching out to my handler for support here, maybe focus on figuring out who I _am_ now, rather than focusing on what I was?” she hoped he couldn’t hear the wobble in her voice, because the focus on being an asset, completing this mission she had apparently set for herself, was all that kept her from falling apart.

He looked at her for a long moment. She thought he looked…sad.

“I can do that,” he said.

+

+

That night, Steve woke in the early morning hours with a start, chasing the remnants of an unusually vivid dream about dark hair and full lips and skin softer than it had any right to be for what it had endured and what it could dish out.

He lay on his back for a long moment before letting out a low and heartfelt “Shit”.

+

+

In the end, they decided that since they had no real guide, they might as well approach the facilities from top to bottom. Well, from shoulder to hip, as it were.

Despite the tentative sort of understanding that had been reached between Darcy and Steve, it was still a quiet and tense flight in the quinjet to the remote mountain range in northern Canada where the first facility was located.

Darcy could feel Steve’s eyes on her the whole trip, as if he was still waiting for her to back out or break down. And she could see Bucky watching Steve with an odd sort of wry amusement that she recognized but couldn’t read.

Natasha looked as if she was disgusted with the lot of them.

They settled the jet down a good few miles from the compound. Natasha would be running ops from the warm safety of the cockpit while Darcy, Steve, and Bucky made their way through the biting cold wind.

“Alright,” said Natasha, her arms crossed and voice stiff in a way that alerted Darcy to the fact that she was about to give an order that at least one of them wouldn’t like. “This is surveillance and recon only,” she said tightly, which they knew, “we are not prepared for any kind of full scale assault, and we are keeping our risk level to a minimum,” again, all part of the agreed upon mission brief, “So Rogers, you will take up a position at the perimeter to watch the exits while Barnes and Lewis run the in and out.”

Ahhh, there it was.

“Nat,” started Steve in a surly tone, but she cut him off at once.

“We agreed I’m running ops Cap,” she said sharply, “and that is how I’m calling this one.”

There was a long moment where the two of them stared each other down before Steve let out a still huff. “Fine,” he said. “Understood.”

It was a long, cold, and quiet march to the surveillance perimeter of the outpost, the only communication being Bucky’s occasional relay of their position to Nat.

“Alright,” Steve finally said, pulling to a stop near a small copse of stringy pines at the top of a rise near their target, “I’ll set up here. I want regular check ins once you’re in the building, and I want you in and out of there in ten minutes at the most, understood?”

Darcy rolled her eyes at his commanding tone, but was starting to get used to his tension on missions now, so tossed him a little salute. Bucky gave him what she thought was a somewhat uncharacteristically solemn nod.

She and Bucky proceeded cautiously down the slope, Natasha confirming that their codes were working and nothing in the security system was registering their presence.

“You know why he’s so bent out of shape about this whole mission, don’t you?” Bucky whispered to her casually over the comms as they moved low to the ground, darting from building to building as they approached the entrance they had identified as their best bet.

“Sure,” she hissed back with a grin, “I’m getting used to the constant doubt. What surprises me is that he constantly seems so _surprised_ when I disappoint him.”

Bucky let out a hastily concealed snort of laughter, “You two idiots deserve each other,” he said with a tone of exasperation.

“That’s enough chatter,” Natasha’s voice, not even trying to conceal her amusement, came over the coms. “You guys can work out your interpersonal issues on your own time. I’m opening the door for you now.”

It was very very early in the morning, and Nat’s surveillance told them that only a skeleton staff was actually in the building. Still, they moved quietly and carefully, Nat remotely disabling the security system as they went, and Steve keeping them apprised of movement outside of the base.

Her relationship with James, whatever it was, could be strained and awkward at times. He knew her in a way that she didn’t understand and, although she knew that there was _something_ there, she didn’t remember it like he did. And she hated seeing the look of quickly concealed pain in his eyes every time he butted up against the giant wall in her memories of him.

Here, though, like this, it was incredibly easy. Some things, she supposed, just got ingrained in your bones when you spent enough time with someone. Working with him, moving quietly in step and reading his signals, felt effortless. It felt like flying.

It was only two minutes into their surveillance that they caught a break.

It was a lab, not unlike the one she and Steve had found just before they ran into Bucky in New York.

“Widow,” Darcy whispered into the com, “are you getting this?”

“Yeah,” Nat’s voice sounded shell shocked over the coms, “But I have no idea what I’m looking at.”

“Report?” Came Steve’s sharp question. Unlike Nat, he had no uplink and couldn’t see what they were seeing.

“It’s…” Darcy started, searching for the right words, “It’s…big.”

“It looks like a containment field to me,” said Bucky from beside her, “And it looks like there are a few really heavy duty power sources working together to create it.”

Darcy gained control of her vocabulary and continued “It’s spherical,” she said, “and it doesn’t look solid. It almost looks like a liquid, but it’s sort of….”

“Shimmery?” Bucky suggested.

“Sure,” she said, “shimmery. It doesn’t look like it’s containing anything though” she circled the structure in front of her curiously, glancing down at a read out screen in front of her.” Darcy sucked in a sharp gasp of air.

“Nat,” she said in a hiss, “look at these energy read outs.”

She heard Natasha curse over the coms.

“What?” she heard both Steve and Bucky asked in concert.

“Well,” said Darcy, “I’ve seen these energy readings before.”

“Where?” asked James.

“The rainbow bridge,” she said simply.

“From what I know of the science,” came Nat’s voice, “the amount of energy it takes to open up that bridge is astronomical. Part of the reason Dr. Foster had such a hard time working on it is that there is essentially nothing on earth that can contain it.”

“So,” said Steve slowly, “if someone _could_ contain it, and then release it on demand.”

“They’d be really goddamn dangerous,” Bucky finished.

“Even the energy required to power that containment field is dangerous,” said Nat.

“So, you know,” said Darcy dryly to Bucky, “be careful.”

“Be very careful,” said Nat, a sudden note of alarm in her voice, “from the energy readings it doesn’t look like that field is entirely stable.”

“Alright,” said Darcy, “Lets copy the hard drive on this thing and get out of here,” she pulled a flash drive from a pocket and set to work as James watched the door.

+

+

They only got a second of warning, Natashsa’s hissed, “incoming”, enough to remove the drive with whatever they had managed to copy, before the door swung open.

Gregarin and a two tall men in black fatigues stood in the doorway.

It was immediately clear that they had not known that Darcy and James were there. There was a moment of stunned silence.

And it was also immediately clear that there was going to be no easy out from this situation.

“Bucky,” came Steve’s voice tight and tense over the coms, “report, dammit.”

“Well,” came Gregarin’s stiff voice, “This _is_ a surprise. The American and her bodyguard reunited and still _getting in my way_.” He was clearly losing his patience with them.

Bucky was not surprised.

He was, however, surprised not to hear a well-timed remark from Darcy behind him.

He turned slightly, only to find her ghostly pale, gripping the end of the desk she stood behind, staring wide eyed at the man behind Gregarin’s left shoulder. Bucky didn’t recognize him.

Gregarin cast his eyes back at her.

“Ah yes,” he said with a grin, “dear Vasily can’t be bringing up any nice memories for you, can he? Once Preston brought me in on the wider plan here, he had plenty of interesting things to say about you though. Not exactly what you seem, are you Ms. Lewis?”

Bucky heard Steve’s stiff intake of breath over the comms. He knew exactly how Steve felt. Gregarin had clearly moved closer to the center of the plot. He knew who Darcy was, was clearly working with the same people that had been at Khanovey, and now Darcy was faced with one of the men who had spent months and months torturing her.

And Steve didn’t have to see the way her hand was twitching, the way her breath heaved and hitched in short gasps.

But she was holding it together, he could see that. Steve couldn’t.

“I’m going in,” he heard over the comms.

“Awww, shit,” he let out, just before a loud explosion at the closest entrance rocked the building.

In the momentary confusion that followed, Bucky took out the second guard to Gregarin’s left with a neat round. “Darce,” he hollered, code names obviously meaningless now, “You have to _move_.”

But she was still standing there. He could hear Steve’s footsteps coming up the hall, but Gregarin and the other guard were splitting up and taking off. Gregarin had his gun raised, and for a heart stopping moment Bucky though he was aiming at Darcy, but that wasn’t it.

With a shower of sparks and a violent crackle one of the generators powering the containment field exploded, and the circular field in front of them began to jerk and twitch violently.

Steve careened into the room just as Gregarin and the other guard took off. He took one quick survey of the situation and shouted at Bucky, “go after them!”

With one quick, tense look back at Darcy, he took off in pursuit.

+

+

“Darcy,” she could hear Steve’s voice as if through a fog, “snap out of it, come on!”

She was lost in a sluggish spool of horrible memories swimming across her vision. She knew she needed to push through, they were in danger she had to move, she had to…

Steve’s hands were gripping the side of her face, his eyes clear and alarmed in her immediate field of vision, and the world snapped into focus.

She bent double and vomited.

“Widow,” she could hear the Captain’s tense voice behind her, one of his hands resting strong and tense on her back as she heaved, “get us out of here.”

“No,” she said, sluggishly wiping her mouth with the back of her hand and straightening up, “No, we need Vasily” she fairly spat out the name, “He’s inner circle, he’ll know the right facility.”

He looked at her steadily for a long moment, and then nodded. “Alright,” he said, “Go. I’ll extract the rest of the data here.”

She reached out, almost unconsciously, and squeezed his hand in gratitude for his trust and confidence before she spun on her heel and took off running.

“Head east,” came Bucky’s voice over the comms. “They split up. I’m on Gregarin”.

“Copy,” she said, and then after a moment, in a low voice, “I’ve got movement at…”

Steve’s voice came over the comms with a crackle, “Negative,” he said tensely, “Clear out. The field is degenerating. I can handle the power surges here long enough to get you clear.”

She froze, the implication _but not long enough to get myself clear_ coming though as if it was spoken.

A noise at her left drew her attention. Vasily, moving almost silently down the corridor towards an exit, he hadn’t seen her yet. It would be easy to knock him down and drag him out of there, get clear and get the information. She reached down into a pocket at her thigh, a secure cylinder of the substance Jane had synthesized heavy against her thigh, little fragments of memory pinging at the back of her brain. Steve had rolled his eyes when she had suggested they all carry one, but let her bring it along without comment.

She didn’t even need to ask what Steve’s orders would be.

She didn’t even need a moment to consider what she was going to do.

She started sprinting back to the lab.

“Barnes, Vasily is near the east exit, grab him if you can. I can contain this thing long enough to get us all out of here.”

“Lewis, I told you to clear out,” said Steve over the comms, almost desperately.

“Yeah well,” she huffed as she ran, “We already know I’m terrible at following orders.”

“Lewis,” came Nat’s voice, “You really think you can get both of you out of there again?”

“Yes,” she said staunchly as she rounded the corner to the lab.

“Then those are your orders.”

She unceremoniously knocked a shell-shocked looking Steve away from the terminal, her fingers flying over the keys, pointedly ignoring the very unstable wobble and bulge of the containment field.

“You’ve got a buried memory of this?” Steve asked, watching her in surprise.

“No,” she said absently, as she flicked several switches regulating power supply to the field, “I spent three years working on this shit with an astrophysicist. You pick up a few things.”

The columns on the screen that had been reading blaring red dipped down to orange as she hit a few more keys, but they were steadily creeping upwards.

“Also,” she said, “Have this.” She pulled out the small cylinder and, without even pausing at Steve’s shouted “No!” broke it open and tossed the substance at the field.

The columns on the screen dipped even lower, holding steady for the moment.

“We’ve got about 90 seconds,” she said, looking over at Steve.

He took one shaky breath. “Then GO dammit,” he said, hauling on her elbow as he started sprinting towards the exit.

They made it a few hundred feet clear of the building when it blew, tossing them to the ground where they lay for a moment, stunned.

“Well,” said Darcy finally, “that went well.”

Steve didn’t say a word as he picked himself up, brushing away debris before stiffly offering her a hand, which she accepted.

“Barnes?” she asked over the comms, “Did you get him?”

There was nothing.

“I think the blast fried the comms,” she said to Steve, “we should head for the rendezvous.”

He started moving without looking at her.

“Hey,” she said, pulling him to a stop with a hand at his wrist, “you alright?”

“Am I _alright_?” he scoffed incredulously, “Lewis, you disobeyed a direct order, let our best source of information go, and almost got yourself _killed_.”

She stared at him for a moment, “Dude,” she said finally, “I saved your _life_.”

He folded his arms over his chest, “You almost lost your own.”

“Yeah, but I _didn’t_ ,” she said.

“You got lucky,” he said, “You disobeyed orders and you got lucky. How am I supposed to put you in the field when you’re liable to run off and throw yourself into situations against orders that risk your life and the whole mission.”

He was jittery and tense. Part of Darcy knew that having this out in the immediate aftermath of the adrenaline inducing situation was not a good idea, but she couldn’t stop now.

“And how the hell am I supposed to do my job when you are constantly making decisions as if I need to be protected and coddled. You say the words, Cap, but you still treat me like some dumb kid, not an asset, not a part of the team.” She wished she could have held back the hurt in her voice when she said it.

“You _are_ an asset Lewis,” Steve cut out, iron tension in his voice “and an asset that is _central_ to the success of this mission, which means that your life is too important to risk over mine.”

“Well that’s bullshit,” she said, “You can’t expect me to just leave you to die every time we go out in the field. That’s not how this works,” she said, gesturing between them.

“This?” he said, imitating the gesture, “this _doesn’t_ work.”

She looked at him, blinking for a long moment, the stinging shock of his words reverberating across the frozen ground between them..

But before either of them could say anything else, Natasha came running over the ridge.

“Comms are down,” she said, “Evac in 60 seconds, let’s go.”


	9. Whatever there be of Progress

Whatever there be of progress in life comes not through adaptation but through daring.

  * Henry Miller



 

She had a lot of time to think over the next few hours, as Steve was studiously avoiding being anywhere near her, and James and Nat were studiously avoiding…whatever it was that was going on between their teammates.

She thought a lot about what exactly it was that was going on with her and Steve. He was one of a total of three people on the planet who actually knew her as she was now, one of three people on the planet that she trusted, given that Jane and Thor were currently in Asgard.

But, as today’s events had clearly shown, things between her and Steve were…different.

She could acknowledge to herself at least that she felt a need to prove herself where Steve was concerned that she didn’t feel with James or Natasha. Part of it was that James and Natasha accepted her skills and her particular weaknesses with equanimity, while Steve was so wary of whatever was going on her head, so careful.

But it was more than that.

She wanted to…she wanted to impress him, if she was being honest with herself. She wanted his admiration and praise. She wanted him to _like_ her. She envied the casual way he joked with Nat, or the physical contact he was starting to share with James – an arm around the shoulder, a hand wrapped around the wrist. She wanted…

She shook her head to shake off the unwanted thought that had just flitted through her head.

She couldn’t shake the thought, though, that Steve had been _right_. They were on a mission. They could not complete that mission without her. She had risked all of that, and let Gregarin go, to save Steve’s life.

She sat, unmoving, her arms crossed around her knees, in the corner of the graveled roof of the complex, looking up at the stars until her eyes started to swim.

“What the hell are you doing up here kid?” James’s voice came from over by the door leading down below. “I’ve been looking everywhere for you.

“You wanna yell at me to?” she asked morosely.

“Oh I see,” he said with a roll of his eyes, “you’re up here moping because the Captain unloaded at you?”

She let out a frustrated sigh, “So what if I am, Barnes?” she cut out, “No one told you to come and deal with it.”

He raised his hands in a placating fashion, “I know, I know. I came because I wanted to.”

She let the tension drain out of her shoulders. There was no point in picking a fight with James, even though it might make her feel better in the short term.

“He talked to you?” she asked cautiously and James settled to the ground beside her.

He let out a short laugh, “Steve isn’t really in the mood for talking at the moment,” he said with a roll of his eyes, “I think he’s still hitting out his feelings on the hanging bag in the gym.”

“Oh,” said Darcy in a low voice, “that’s probably my fault.”

“Probably,” said James with equanimity, “but not for the reason you think.”

She raised an eyebrow at him.

“Darce,” he said, his tone suddenly serious, “do you really think Steven ‘I’m going in against orders without a parachute’ Rogers is upset because you disobeyed orders?”

“Uhhh…” Darcy said dumbly, the obvious but unexpected thought rolling around in her head uncomfortably “yes?”

“You’re both idiots,” James muttered under his breath with a sigh, “He was terrified today kid. That’s why he yelled at you.”

“I know I risked the mission,” Darcy started protesting, “but I knew I could stop it. I knew the mechanics and the substance was…”

“Darcy,” James interrupted in exasperation, “He was terrified because you put yourself at risk, you could have died.” He nudged his shoulder against hers comfortingly, “I wasn’t super enthusiastic about the situation either, to be honest.”

“Oh,” she said in a small voice, “Well if I hadn’t gone in, he _would_ have died,” she said, but the frustration and tension was starting to drain from her voice.

“I would have done the exact same in your spot kid,” said James, leaning back against the wall behind him, looking up at the stars with her. “He has a very hard time letting people care about him, letting himself care. He’s lost a lot.” He said after a moment.

“So have you,” she said softly, her hand falling to wrap around his wrist.

She could see his grin out of the corner of her eye. “Took you years to make me admit I cared about you Lewis. Just because you don’t remember it…”

She elbowed him in the side, grinning in spite of herself.

“He cares about you Darce, he really does.” He paused, “More than he’s willing to admit to himself yet. Give him a break hey? For my sake? He’s really annoying when he’s moping around about you.”

She didn’t look at him, unwilling to look him in the eyes and examine exactly what he was saying about Steve. But she nodded.

“You want to come in?” he asked as he pulled himself to his feet.

She shook her head. “I’ll sit here for a while longer,” she said, but she smiled up at him. “Thanks though.”

He nodded at her with a grin, pulling off his jacket and tossing it to her before he went back inside.

She pulled the warmth and familiar smell of the leather jacket around her shoulders.

As much as she wanted to believe James, and she did really, Steve’s motives didn’t change the fact that he had been right. Gregarin was gone, and with him their best lead on how to narrow down their search.

If only she could _remember_ something.

She thought back to their encounter at the facility, Gregarin with Vasily behind him, a sour taste rising in her throat even at the thought. But she swallowed it and forced herself to move carefully through the catalogue of details her mind held: his black jacket, dark pressed pants, ever present overly shined shoes, the key ring he had been swinging on his finger, the rental car tag jingling against…

She paused, taking in a breath.

He was driving a goddamn _rental car_. That absolute _moron_. Of course he would rent a car without ever running it by Preston, who would have provided an unmarked car upon request, but wouldn’t have thought to ask if Gregarin had his own.

She focused on that moment, willing the altered mechanics of her brain to recall it, concentrating until she could feel an oddly familiar pain pressing on the back of her eyes, following the memory down until she could recall the rental car company. She got four out of six license plate numbers before she felt a trickle of blood leak from her nose. She gasped and let the memory go.

It would be enough.

She pulled James’s jacket closed around her, walked to the edge of the building, shimmied down a drain pipe, and took off running.

+

+

He lay on his bed for a full hour, willing the exhaustion in his body from the mission and from spending far too much time trying to work out his…whatever was going on with him, in the gym to allow him to sleep.

But he couldn’t stop picture the look on Darcy’s face when he told her their partnership…that they…didn’t work.

He didn’t think he knew how unguarded she could be at times. Never when she was working in the field, but with Nat, with Bucky, with _him_ , sometimes her feelings just shone through and he could read her like a book.

He knew exactly how much that comment had hurt her. In the moment, he had _intended_ it. Anything to get through to her, so that she would never risk herself like that again.

Now, though…

He let out a frustrated sigh and rolled out of bed.

He headed quietly down the hall to her room, stopping outside with a start when he saw the light on. Maybe she couldn’t sleep either…maybe he could find the right words to fix this…

He knocked quietly on her door, and was surprised when it opened under his hand, already ajar.

“Darcy?” he asked quietly as he pushed the door open, “I wanted to…”

He stopped. The room was empty.

A sudden feeling of fear crept over him. There was no rule that she had to be in bed, she could be in the kitchen, or in the gym, or in the rec. room, or on the roof.

But when he checked, she wasn’t.

He knocked on Bucky’s door with considerably more force than he had on Darcy’s.

“Whhhhhrrrrr??” came the muffled response from inside.

“Bucky,” he said, opening the door abruptly, “Darcy’s missing.”

The sleep rumpled form in the bed sat up abruptly, reaching over to turn on the light. “What?” Bucky asked, his tone sharpening.

“I walked by, her light was on, but she’s not in her room” Steve said.

“Oh,” said Bucky relaxing, “she was up on the roof before, she probably fell asleep, go and fetch sleeping beauty will ya?” he rolled over to go back to sleep.

“She’s not there,” he said, “I checked. I looked everywhere.”

Bucky sat up again, and Steve heard Natasha from the room across the hall.

“Barnes, get your ass out of bed. When did you last see her. Rogers, pull up surveillance.” She was pulling on a sweatshirt and approaching them before they could react.

“It was about 10pm when I last saw her,” said Bucky as the three of them headed for the surveillance room.

“It’s 3 am now,” said Nat, checking her watch.

“Jesus,” muttered Steve, “she could be anywhere.”

He began pulling up current feeds around the compound.

“We should start with the roof…” he began, but Natasha interrupted.

“We should start with the driveway,” she said, wry amusement in her voice, as the screens in front of her showed a sleek black car, a recognizable brunette behind the wheel, speeding down the wooded road that led to the compound.

They were waiting when Darcy skidded to a stop on the gravel drive in front of him.

Steve had to bite back an immediate reaction as she stepped out of the car, still wearing the black tactical undersuit that had been under the cold weather gear they had worn on their recent mission, but with Bucky’s leather jacket hanging around her shoulders and her hair loose and wild.

He wasn’t sure if it was going to be some sort of reprimand or a probably impolite compliment. It was probably for the best that he kept his mouth shut for the moment.

“You know,” said Nat calmly, “if you wanted a midnight snack, there is an on-site chef.”

“Not exactly what I was looking for,” Darcy responded evenly, “felt like picking something up instead.”

She opened the rear door to the car and a bound, gagged, unconscious, and slightly the worse for wear Gregarin fell onto the driveway.

Bucky and Nat looked at Gregarin, looked over at Steve, whose jaw was clenched impossibly tight, and then at each other.

“We’ll get him inside,” Bucky said quickly. “A hand, Nat?” he asked.

“Sure,” she said at once, and they hustled the unconscious man inside, leaving Darcy and Steve staring each other down as the dust settled behind the car.

Steve forced himself to take three long breaths before he opened his mouth.

After that failed to steady him, he decided that words were overrated. He strode over to Darcy, who looked nervous, but didn’t flinch away as he stopped inches in front of her.

He didn’t know which of the two of them were more surprised when he threw his arms around her and pulled her tight against his chest. He could smell the cordite of gun shots in her hair and could feel the way she held her weight off of her right foot.

He let out a long slow breath, feeling steadier with her heartbeat under his hands.

“I’m glad you’re okay,” he said finally, against her hair.

He felt as her arms tracked around his waist, falling against the small of his back.

She didn’t say anything and he thought maybe she was feeling something like what he was, a sense of calm, knowing that she was right here in front of him.

Finally, though, he pulled away, looking down at her.

She looked tired.

He let out a sigh. “Should I even ask what the hell you thought you were doing taking off on your own to bring in Gregarin?”

“You were right,” she said finally, her arms dropping to her sides, “I shouldn’t have let him go. So I got him back.”

He ran a hand through his hair, “I wasn’t right,” he said, “I was making decisions to keep you safe, not to get the mission accomplished.”

“Yeah?” she said with a small smile up at him, “well so was I.”

The moment drew out a little too long, and Steve finally dropped his eyes, stubbornly ignoring the flush he could feel at the tips of his ears. It was dark out, no one would see.

“How did you find him?”

“I…remembered?” she said uncertainly.

“You remembered?” he asked incredulously? “Remembered what?”

“He was carrying a key chain with a rental car tag on it,” she said.

“How in the hell did that help you find him?”

“I remembered really hard,” she said with a wry grin.

It was then that he was the dried blood in the crease of her nose. Without thinking about it, he reached out to rub it away with his thumb.

She looked like she was bracing for argument, and boy was he thinking about it. But instead he just sighed and dropped his hand.

“I don’t like you out in the field alone,” he said finally.

“Wasn’t exactly my favorite either,” she said, “but it was my mistake, so I fixed it.”

“It wasn’t a mistake,” Steve said abruptly, “Darcy, what I said about… about us. I was…” he sighed in resignation as whatever this was passed out of reach of any kind of handler / asset relationship Steve was familiar with, “I was scared, alright? I just about got you killed, and I wasn’t…I didn’t react well.”

“Okay,” said Darcy evenly, but he thought he saw the hint of a smile at the corner of her lips.

“So next time you’re gonna go rogue…?” he prompted.

“I’ll call you,” she said, the grin clear now.

“Good,” he said with finality, “Now let’s go drag some information out of Gregarin, shall we?”

They walked side by side towards the building, steps falling in synch without any conscious effort. It felt good. It felt _right._

“Hey Darce,” Steve found himself saying as they walked through the door, something like relief and warmth bubbling up in his gut.

“Yeah?”

“S’Bucky’s jacket right?” he asked.

“Oh, yeah,” she answered absently.

He cocked a crooked grin at her as he held the door, “It’s a really good look on you.”


	10. Wear this World Out

your praise shall still find room Even in the eyes of all posterity That wear this world out to the ending doom.

  * Sonnet 55



 

“Well Lewis,” said Hill with an uncharacteristically pleased look on her face, “looks like Gregarin is more afraid of you than he is of Preston.”

“Damn right,” Bucky cut in, reaching over to high five an amused Darcy.

“He gave up the location?” asked Natasha.

“He gave up the location,” confirmed Hill.

She pulled up a map on the wall screen.

“Here are the four remaining decoy sites,” she said, four locations across the north American map lighting up. “Given what we found at the first location, we think that there are probably important things to learn at these locations, but we are going to send other teams to do recon and then take them out.”

“Once we take down the rest of the decoys, won’t that tell Hydra that we’re coming?” asked Steve.

“We’re not sending all of the decoy teams in at once. We’re scheduling two of the operations after the main op,” said Hill. “We might give up some additional information, but given what we got from Gregarin, we feel we’ve got enough to go in without all of the decoys.”

“What did Gregarin say about the containment field?” asked Darcy, on edge, her fingers drumming against the table.

“Essentially,” said Hill stiffly, “it looks like they’ve got the tech to drop the equivalent of a few atom bombs worth of energy without warning and completely out of nowhere on carefully targeted locations using tesseract technology.”

“What do you mean without warning?” asked Bucky.

“They’re building localized Einstein-Rosen bridges,” said Darcy, “that’s what they were working so hard to contain.” It wasn’t even really a question.

“You remember something?” asked Steve.

“Funnily, I worked that one out myself,” said Darcy, but it lacked the venom it might have had a few days ago.

Steve rolled his eyes and grinned at her. She couldn’t help returning it.

“So,” said Bucky, eyeing Steve and Darcy carefully, “Hydra has a gun that can destroy anything, anyone, anywhere and once they pull the trigger, there is nothing we could do to stop it.”

“That’s about the sum of it,” agreed Hill.

“Well that’s not good,” said Darcy a bit hollowly.

“The good news is that, based on the intel we got from Gregarin and initial observation of the central location, we’ve got some time. We’re going to run two of the decoy ops. We want you all on standby in case the situation changes, but otherwise you’ve got a week or so before you’re scheduled to go in and take this thing out.”

“Understood,” said Natasha, “is that all?”

Hill nodded, “We’ll pass on the operational details shortly. Otherwise, try to take break.”

+

+

They were sitting around later that afternoon in the common area. They had all filtered in slowly, having nothing else productive to do after daily training and administrative tasks were done.

Darcy, for one, couldn’t remember having had a day off in the last three years.

“So,” she said, after the silence drew out, “what exactly does ‘taking a break’ look like around here?”

A positively feral grin crossed Natasha’s face.

“Barnes,” she called over to him where he was browsing through the communal fridge, “check behind the coffee in the cupboard above the fridge, you should find a few bottles.”

“Bad plan,” said Darcy, not hiding her amused grin as she settled down on a coach across from Natasha. “It’s nearly impossible to get James drunk.”

Bucky froze where he was setting three bottles down on the counter. “What?” he asked sharply.

“Don’t look so offended,” she tossed over her shoulder, “you can take down an entire bottle without….oh” she drew to a stop.

“You remembered,” he said, sounding stunned.

“I guess…yeah, I guess I did,” she said, a slow smile growing on her face, “I remember you proving it to me, maybe in a cabin somewhere, is that right?”

“Yeah, kid,” Bucky said, his voice thick, “of all of the things to remember though,” he shook his head at her.

“I would say that calls for a celebration,” said Steve with a complicated expression on his face, “but Bucky makes two of us who can’t properly participate.”

“Not going to be an issue,” said Natasha, gesturing at the bottle on the right of the three that Bucky had placed on the counter. “Thor left some of the good stuff.”

+

+

“That’s it!” Darcy exclaimed, hurling her controller to the floor and standing up somewhat unsteadily. “I refuse to lose to you _any more_ Romanov!” she flopped inelegantly down on a sofa, her fingers reaching blindly for a beer bottle on the side table.

“Well,” said Natasha coolly, “you could try _winning_. That might help.” It was very difficult to tell that Natasha had been drinking, but Darcy could see it. She was quicker with a smile, a little less calculated. It was nice, Darcy thought, to see her like that.

Bucky, on the other hand, was a menace. And he was definitely Bucky right now, not the cool and dryly funny James she was used to.

“I’ll avenge you Lewis,” he said, vaulting dangerously over the back of the sofa to take her former spot on the floor. “You think you’re ready for this Romanov?” he challenged gleefully.

She snorted, “Just don’t get your tears on my shirt when you lose.”

Darcy watched in amusement as Bucky’s movements got ever wilder as Natasha’s calm competence left his Mario cart in the dust.

Her attention wandering, she saw that Steve was standing out on the small patio off the common area, leaning against the railing.

She didn’t even think Nat and Bucky saw her go as she swung through the kitchen to pop open another beer before moving out to join him.

“Everything good Cap?” she asked, leaning on the railing beside him.

“Hmmm?” he said, turning to her, “Yeah. It’s good.” His grin was almost goofy and she couldn’t help but smile back.

“This is nice,” he said, still looking at her, “feels almost….”

“Normal?” Darcy suggested as he trailed off.

“Yeah,” he agreed easily, “I can’t remember the last time I just…stopped, you know?”

“You should do it more often,” she said, “drunk Steve is a lot less uptight than regular Steve.”

“You think I’m uptight?” he asked with a frown she didn’t quite think he was aware of.

“Well…yeah, most of the time,” she answered easily. She hadn’t touched the Asgardian stuff, but she’d definitely had enough to make her honest. “But most of the time you’re in situations where being in control is pretty important, so it works out.”

He huffed out a little laugh at her. “Believe it or not, I used to be a lot more reckless.”

“Oh you are still terrifyingly reckless Cap,” Darcy said, bumping her hip against his, “Nat has told me all about your disdain for parachutes.”

He sighed, a little thoughtfully. “I guess, but that’s all…work stuff. Shit needs to get done, you know, and someone’s gotta do it.”

He paused, but she waited for him to go on, because apparently drunk Steve was also honest and sincere Steve, which made her stomach do a slow flip for reasons she didn’t want to examine.

“It’s the life stuff that I can’t seem to figure out. Never could.” He grinned at her wryly. “Apparently the one thing the serum couldn’t cure is my pathetic social life.”

Darcy laughed out loud. “Funny. Drunk Steve is also funny.”

“I’m not _drunk_ , per se,” he said indignantly, “just…” he made a hazy gesture with his hand that she thought she understood.

“Right,” Darcy agreed with a smile. “And your social life is not pathetic.”

“Oh no?” he said, his eyebrow raising in a challenge, “Does jumping out of airplanes with people suddenly count as a date now?”

“Oh!” Darcy said, her eyes going round and wide in surprise, “so by social life, you mean you’re not getting laid?”

He winced, “Well that’s not exactly how I would have put it…” he finally said.

She started laughing.

“Yeah yeah, yuck it up Lewis,” he said, something like a pout crossing his face.

“No, no it’s just…” she took a breath, “it’s just that, I mean, half of the population of the planet would probably jump in bed without a second thought, and you can’t find anyone to date. It’s…amusingly ironic. I mean, look at you!” she gestured at him with a sweeping motion, his rumpled slacks, rolled up shirt sleeves and mussed hair not detracting one bit from his overall aura.

“Well what do you suggest, Lewis? I should start picking up groupies?” He raised an eyebrow at her as he turned, resting his back against the railing.

“Oh god no,” she said quickly, “I’m just saying that if you wanted to get to know a girl, the direct approach will probably work for you. I’d lay money on any single girl you can name agreeing to go for a coffee with you, if you would just ask.”

“The direct approach, hey?” he said, a calculating expression on his face as he looked at her.

“Yeah,” she said, pushing back from the railing, “think about it like jumping out of an airplane without a parachute. Should be easy for you.” She grinned at him.

And then he was kissing her.

For a moment, she was nothing but surprised. And he pulled away, looking at her cautiously.

As the moment processed, something low in her spine flared upwards, and she reached up to thread her fingers through his hair and pull his mouth back to hers.

For all the friction between her and Steve, she was somehow unsurprised at how easy this was, how one of his broad hands fit perfectly against her lower back, and how he so quickly figured out that the pull of his teeth against her lower lip would make her gasp, pressing closer to him, her hands clutching at his shoulders.

His hand wound into her hair as his tongue pressed past her parted lips, and she could taste the faint smoky edge of the Asgardian liquor in his mouth. His thumb was stroking absent circles on her back, and she thought that she could keep kissing Steve forever.

And then they heard the com system inside buzz loudly, and they pulled apart.

Kissing Steve had been simple, but she was quickly realizing as they stood there staring at each other, that dealing with it was not going to be simple at all. She couldn’t read him right now, but whatever was going on behind his eyes, it was not simple.

“Steve…” she started, although she didn’t know what she was going to say.

“Hey,” called Bucky from inside, and they immediately stepped apart, “you guys out there? Hill says the timeline has been stepped up. We have a few hours to sober up and sleep, and then we’re out of here.”

“Roger,” Steve called back without looking away from her.

“We should…” he finally said, gesturing back to the building.

“Yeah,” she agreed.

And they headed back inside without another word.

+

+

“So,” James sat down beside her in one of the quin jet jump seats. “What’s going on with you and Steve?”

Steve was up in the cockpit with Natasha, going over the mission schematics, headset on. Still, she looked over her shoulder to make sure he wasn’t listening.

“Nothing. What do you mean?” she tried for casual.

“Well, the fact that the two of you keep _looking_ at each other when you think no one is watching was sign number one. It’s all part of my ‘something is up’ thesis that I’m working on,” he grinned at her as he slumped backwards into his seat.

She could feel her cheeks heating up, “Stop working on it Barnes,” she said slightly more sharply than she intended.

“Hey,” he said defensively, “you don’t want to talk about it with me, that’s fine. Nat thought you might prefer to talk to me than to her, but I can go get her.”

“Why do I have to talk about it _at all,”_ she said grumpily, crossing her arms.

“Because we’re about to drop into what has the potential to be a very dangerous situation and we gotta make sure the whole team has their heads on straight,” he said, but he was at least looking somewhat sympathetic.

Darcy let out a long sigh.

“Fine,” she said, “We kissed. We didn’t talk about it. It’s weird. That’s all that going on.”

James’s eyebrows shot up to his hairline. “You kissed,” he repeated.

Darcy nodded stiffly.

“And then you just…didn’t say anything?” he asked incredulously.

“Well you were hollering at us about the timetable, so we didn’t really get a chance,” she said crossly.

“And there was something wrong with catching him over breakfast this morning?” he asked archly.

“I…” she threw up her hands, “Fine, I chickened out, okay? But it’s fine. He’s not saying anything either. We were drinking. We’re just…forgetting about it. It’s not going to screw us up for the op.”

“You’re just forgetting about it?” he asked with a shake of his head. “Darce, for someone so smart, you can be really dumb, you know?”

Darcy didn’t get a chance to ask him what he meant by that, because Natasha burst into the back hold in a hurry.

“We’re going in hot,” she said, strapping on her holsters, “they know we’re coming. Just got word from one of the decoy teams. The weapon is up and running and they’re going to relocate it immediately.”

“We can’t let them move it,” said Darcy leaping to her feet and getting herself ready, “They know about me, we’ll never find the trail if we lose it now.”

“That’s why we’re going in hot,” said Natasha, with something that sounded oddly like anticipation. “I’m going to drop us right on the roof.”

It was a disaster from the moment they ran out of the cloaked quin jet.

“Alright,” said Steve abruptly as they ran for the door, “Widow, you’re with Barnes setting the charges. Lewis, you’re with me. We’re going after the weapon.”

But they didn’t even make it down one flight before the shooting started.

“Guess Hill wasn’t kidding about that whole ‘they know we’re coming thing’,” said Darcy breathlessly, as she dropped to the floor next to Steve as a hail of bullets flew over them.

“Widow,” he called over to Nat, “Priority is blowing the power, cut their communications if you can. Lewis, stay behind me, we’re moving in.”

She saw Bucky and Nat take off down a hallway to their left, as she tucked behind Steve and his shield as he moved them closer to the group of guards firing at them, using him for cover as they slowly and methodically picked them off.

The silence was ringing in her ears as the last of them fell.

“You got any idea where they’re keeping this thing?” Steve asked her as they moved quietly forward.

“If they know we’re coming,” said Darcy, “even odds are that they are loading that thing up in the hangar as we speak.”

He nodded, “Fair bet,” he said, “lead the way.”

They heard it just as they ran into a line of guards blocking the hangar door, the heart stopping sound of a helicopter spinning up to full speed.

“Go!” Steve hollered at her, “go go,” as he ran at the line of guards.

She waited until she found a hole in the melee and sprinted for the door, guns drawn, but there were too many guards and only one Steve, and one of the guards turned and spotted her, and she felt a tremendous impact in her upper thigh, followed by an immediate burning heat as her leg crumpled under her.

The door behind her opened anyways, but she could see that it was only because the helicopter had cleared firing range, and they were now ordering the guards to other helicopters. She could hear a blaring siren and what sounded like a count down.

This lethargically connected with the fact that they were evacuating the guards. “They’re blowing the place Cap,” she hollered at him, and he shoved the two guards he was fighting away from him and looked back at her.

The two men ran as fast as they could for the door, underscoring what she was saying.

He was at her side in a heartbeat.

“Jesus,” he exclaimed, a hand immediately pressing against the blood flowing from her thigh.

“I’ll be fine,” she said staunchly, “just help me up so we can get out of here.”

He hauled her to her feet, slung an arm around her shoulders and half carried half dragged her forward.

They found Nat and Bucky already at the quinjet when they made it too the roof, anxiously watching for them.

“Come on,” Bucky yelled at them. Steve swung her up into his arms and sprinted the last distance. Nat was pulling the jet off the roof even as they were running up the ramp.

The blast of the building’s self-destruct rocked the quin jet moments later, tossing them around, but thankfully leaving them flying, if only just.

“I’ve got to set it down,” Nat shouted back at them, before finding a clear space of field to land it.

They all sat in silence for a moment as the engines spun to a sputtering stop, they heavy weight of their failure sinking in.

“God _damn_ it,” Darcy finally yelled, unable to contain it.

“Nat,” Steve yelled, dropping down beside Darcy, “we need a med kit here.”

“It’s not,” she cut herself off, a thick lump choking her throat, “I mean, yes, please stop the bleeding but _dammit_ this was _it_.” She shouted again.

“We can…” James started as Nat began efficiently cutting away the leg of her tactical pants.

“We _can’t,_ ” she interrupted, “This is all we had, this is what I did all this to myself for,” she gestured at the ink on her skin, “I lost three years of my life for this and we’ve got _nothing_ ,” she slumped back against the wall of the hold, trying to hold back tears.

“Hey,” said Steve quietly, settling to the ground beside her while Bucky helped Nat with the field dressing, “This isn’t nothing.” He reached out and took her hand as she winced at Natasha’s none too gentle cleaning of her wound, “What you sacrificed, what you’ve done here, you’ve put us _years_ ahead in taking down Hydra, making the world a safer place. No one is ever going to forget what you did for us.”

“He’s right you know,“ Bucky added with a heavy grin, “Nor Mars his sword nor war's quick fire shall burn The living record of your memory.”

Darcy tensed, hardly even noticing the pain that shot through her leg as a result. Something…there was something…big…trying to float up through the back of her mind.

“James,” she said tersely, “that sonnet. The one you tattooed. Did I ever bring it up when we were planning this?”

“You did actually,” he said with a slow curiosity, “You said it was ironic, because your favorite sonnet was about enduring memory. That’s where I got the idea to…Oh.” He said, looking at her wide eyed.

“I did it on purpose,” she said excitedly, scrambling with her good leg to get to her feet. “I remember that I did it on purpose.” She went on as Steve helped her to her feet. She moved haphazardly to the computer console just behind the cockpit.

“The parts that I wasn’t telling you, about the weapon, and the tesseract technology. If they got even a hint that we knew about protocol fifty five at any time I knew this whole thing would fall apart. They’d disappear, the project would be dissolved and started up again somewhere else, we’d lose the trail. It would have changed how we went about this, we would have just gone directly for this place if we’d….”

She was typing frantically, pulling up the quin jet’s powerful network until she located the helicopters radio signal.

“Darce, what is protocol fifty five?” Bucky asked, all three of them watching her in confusion.

She grinned back at them, wide and electric, “It’s a dangerous weapon, that thing. If Hydra couldn’t have it, no one would.”

“It’s got a self-destruct,” said Nat, bending down beside her. “And you’ve found their signal.”

“Protocol fifty five is a remote self-destruct that will blow that thing sky high.” Darcy confirmed.

There was a heavy silence from all three of them as they looked at her, and she knew why.

“If we had known about it,” she said slowly, “we could have destroyed the weapon months ago, and we would have. We’d have weighed the risk versus reward and would have done it, and we’d never have taken Hydra down like this.”

“You knew.” James looked stunned, “you knew, you made the call, you didn’t tell me. You could have told me.”

“James,” she said slowly, “are you telling me you would have gone into this, taken down all of the double blinds, if you knew you could blow up the right facility from a safe distance? I don’t know that I would have.”

He paused, and then shook his head, “You’re right,” he said finally, “I don’t know that I would have let you go in if there was another option.”

“Hydra knows that,” she said, her electric confidence surging again as she saw looks of understanding come over them “and now they are convinced that we have no idea about protocol fifty five and think they are off safe with the device.”

“Can you do it?” asked Nat, following the helicopter’s signal as Darcy frantically entered lines of code.

“I can do it,” she said, “once they’re over the water.”

They watched the signal in tense silence for a moment, and when it crossed over to the water, Darcy entered three lines of text:

your praise shall still find room Even in the eyes of all posterity That wear this world out to the ending doom.

And she hit the enter key.

She hadn’t been sure that they would even see it, but given what the plane had been carrying, she shouldn’t have been surprised. A massive ball of blue white light expanded far off in the distance and then collapsed in on itself, leaving nothing but a hazy ball of smoke on the horizon.

There was a long moment of silence, and then Bucky let out a whoop of delight, throwing his arms around Darcy from his position behind her.

“We did it,” Darcy could hear how shell shocked her voice sounded, “Oh my god we did it!” she let Bucky’s excitement pull her upwards.

“You did it kid,” he said, running his thumb over the tattooed skin of her wrist. “You really did it.”

He wrapped his arms around her again and Darcy let her head fall against his shoulder, tear of relief welling up in her.

“You know any good tattoo removal people?” she asked damply, half muffled against his shoulder.

“I’m sure Stark’s got something,” said Nat with a grin, “But right now we need to get you off of that leg and back to the compound for treatment, alright?”

She gratefully let Nat help her to settle onto a makeshift nest of thick wool blankets in the hold, and didn’t refuse the pain killer that Nat pressed on her. It wasn’t long before she found herself drifting off.


	11. Epilogue

Steve stood for a long while, leaning against the side of the hold, watching Darcy sleep. His brow was furrowed, so lost in thought that he almost jumped out of his skin when Bucky put a hand on his arm.

“Hey,” he said, looking at Steve carefully, “You know she’s gonna be okay, right?”

“Yeah,” he said, looking at Bucky with a sad smile. “I know that.” He paused for a moment. “She makes you happy, doesn’t she?” he asked Bucky, not looking at him, but looking back to Darcy.

Bucky let out a snort of laughter that blossomed into an outright gale.

Steve looked at him in astonishment.

“Sorry, sorry,” said Bucky finally, “Don’t give me that kicked puppy look. It’s just…” he ran a hand through his hair, “You were about to nobly step aside so I could be with Darcy, right?”

“Uhhhh…” said Steve dumbly, this conversation not going anywhere close to how he expected it. “I thought that you and her….”

“You thought we had something going on and you still kissed her?” said Bucky with a raised eyebrow.

Steve could feel the blush right up the his hairline. “It was…we were drinking and I…”

Bucky took pity on him and put a hand on his arm “Steve,” he said, “I want you to listen to me very carefully. Next to you, Darcy is the closest thing I have to family.”

Steve nodded slowly.

“And when I say that,” Bucky went on, “I mean that kissing Darcy would be like kissing my sister.”

“Really?” Steve immediately winced at the elation clear in his voice.

“Yes really, you stupid punk.”

“Jerk,” Steve said with cheerful equanimity. He turned back to look at Darcy.

What if she didn’t want that though? Was she going to stay on the team? She he even…

“Steve?” Bucky interrupted his train of thought.

“Hmmm?”

“Do me a favor and don’t talk yourself out of this one, okay?”

+

+

In the whirlwind of debriefs and meetings that followed their return to base, Darcy almost entirely lost track of Steve. They were rarely in the same room together, because most of Darcy’s meetings were taking place in the med ward.

When all the dust settled, she had been discharged with a job offer from SHIELD, if she wanted it.

After hobbling back to her room with the assistance of a crutch, she sat on her bed in silence for a long while.

Did she want that?

She didn’t exactly know what else she could do anymore.

But there was also Steve. And she had no idea whether that was a reason to stay or a reason to go.

As if thinking about him had called him up, she heard a knock on her door.

“It’s open,” she called a little hesitantly.

Steve stepped awkwardly into her room.

“They’ve started removing them?” he asked at once, pointing towards the freshly bared patch of skin on her arm.

“Yeah,” she said absently, “It’ll take a while, and leave some scarring but…” she trailed off and shrugged.

They stood there in silence for a little while.

“I heard that Hill offered you a job,” he finally said.

She nodded.

“I think you should take it,” he said firmly, “you’re a valuable asset and I want you on my team.”

“Oh,” said Darcy, somewhat surprised and disappointed that this was what he had come to talk about. “Thanks. I’m thinking about it.” She said non-commitally.

“Okay,” he said stiffly, “Well I just wanted to…I mean I thought you should know that I…” he trailed off and ran a hand through his hair. “Well, I hope you stick around, is all.” He finally finished, and then moved to the door.

He stopped though, a hand braced against the door frame, and his back to her. She could feel the tension in the room growing as he just _stood_ there in silence.

“I should apologize,” he said finally.

“Apologize?” Darcy was confused.

“For the other night, before the mission. I shouldn’t have…” he trailed off, half turning to glance at her.

Darcy felt distinctly uncomfortable, but she wasn’t sure whether it was because he was bringing it up, or because he was apologizing for it.

The silence drew out for a long moment between them.

She wanted to say something, but she didn’t know what to say. So she just let him walk out.

+

+

She was feeling oddly nauseated, and she was still sitting in the same spot, knees hugged to her chest, when Natasha and Bucky burst into her room ten minutes later.

“So,” said Bucky with a raised eyebrow, “I just ran into Steve.”

“Oh?” said Darcy in a small voice.

“He says you are _thinking_ about taking the job?” he asked her incredulously.

Darcy shrugged, “I mean, there’s still my family…” she said weakly.

Natasha made a decidedly Russian and decidedly derisive noise. “Taking the job doesn’t mean you lose your family,” she said “Most of us leave reasonably normal lives when we’re not on mission.”

“I know…” said Darcy trailing off.

“You don’t like working with us?” Natasha asked with an arched eyebrow.

“Of course I do!” Darcy said indignantly.

“And I know perfectly well that it’s not the job itself. I’ve never seen anyone take to it like you did, kid,” said Bucky, his arms crossed.

“I guess…” she said, knowing that Bucky was right. It felt _right_ , being here. She had always felt so unsettled before. It wasn’t necessarily how she would have chosen to get here, but here she was.

“So I cannot help but think,” Bucky went on with a glare, “That this is about Rogers.”

Darcy let her head drop into her hands.

“What if it is?” she mumbled into her hands, “he’s the Captain around here. If things are…weird between us…” she trailed off uncertainly.

Weird. That was one way to put it. If she stopped to think about it too long, she kept drifting back to that kiss, the way it felt so right to be pressed against him, how she felt whole in a way she hadn’t since she had woken up in Belarus.

Natasha snorted at her like she knew exactly what Darcy was thinking.

“Darce, kid, remember how I told you how dumb you are?” Bucky said with a grin.

Darcy frowned at him.

“When Steve came in here, heart on his sleeve, and asked you to stay, you really think that was all the Captain? You really think that the Captain goes around casually kissing his assets?”

Darcy realized she had been so focused on her own instability, her own uncertainties, that she hadn’t really looked at it from Steve’s perspective.

“Oh,” she said, looking up at them.

“Oh it’s sinking in now, is it?” asked Bucky sarcastically.

“Oh!” she exclaimed, getting to her feet, immediately full of nervous energy.

“He’s in the gym,” said Natasha, barely managing to restrain her eye roll.

+

+

When she found him, he was just taping up his hands, clearly getting ready to punish the hanging bag for something it didn’t do.

“Hey,” she said as she walked through the door. She felt breathless, even though she had walked there, quite slowly really, given the state of her leg.

“Hi,” he said, turning to her at once, “Everything okay?”

“Yeah,” she said, and she couldn’t help but smile at the concern and focus she saw in his eyes. Bucky was right, she could be really dumb some times. “I came to tell you that I’m taking the job.”

She could see the smile as if it moved through his whole body, finally reaching his face.

“That’s…great. That’s…I’m glad,” he stumbled.

“I also came to tell you something else,” she said, taking a few steps forward so she could face him.

“Oh?” he asked, looking down at her with laser like focus.

She couldn’t find the right words, so she just rolled up onto her toes and kissed him.

He didn’t react at first, freezing in place, and so she pulled back to look at him.

“So you…” he stammered, running a hand through his hair, his eyes still focused on her mouth.

“Yes,” she said at once, and with enthusiasm.

“And you want…?” he couldn’t seem to finish his sentences, but she understood what he was saying anyways.

“Yes, absolutely,” she said with a grin.

The smile that crossed his face was almost blinding “Thank god,” he said.

And there was nothing tentative or stunned about his mouth on her as his hands tangled in her hair and she fell into the warmth of his chest.

And the uncertainty, instability, and dis-connection of her three lost years didn’t seem to matter so much anymore, because right here, she was whole.


End file.
